10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The North South Masters XC

1. Don’t Forget to Bring the Singlet

I think that the most important part of the weekend was to remember to bring the Irish singlet. This was the whole point of the weekend, the green singlet. I really should have done one of those Instagram post with the singlet the night before the race, but I bought it off the internet, so it didn’t seem right.

2. King Billy

I think that it was a great idea to bring Billy to the race in Belfast. A cross country race is a great place for a toddler, toddlers love cross country races. They don’t actually watch the cross-country race but they enjoy the grass and attacking other children.

3. Old Man

I think that old men like me are not able for a long XC season, the tendons in my lower legs are really suffering. Physios on twitter tell you to load your muscles and tendons to cure the niggles while removing stress from your life. I think this is nonsense as my calves are completely overloaded from wearing spikes twice a week and I have a perfect level of stress. Physios need to learn about magic shoes, I plan on curing my niggles by going back racing in magic shoes running in a delusional and pain free state again.

4. Queen’s Farm

I think that the race was excellently organized. The race took place on the Queen’s University playing pitches which is like a hilly UCC Farm. There was one muddy section on the downhill part of the course which is the first mud I’ve seen on a XC course all year. The lap was a proper lap with tight ankle breaking turns and small little steep hills but still plenty of fast sections, it kind of suited me, it was great fun to run and went by too quickly. I wish it had of been 10 or 12k.

5. 1215 or 1230

I think that having any timetable for the race was great after having to guess the start of the Munster Senior. There was a little bit of confusion about the start time as one email said 1230 and on Facebook it said 1215.I went with the Facebook option which turned out to be more accurate. Two timetables is still better than none.

6. Aussie Team?

I think that the start of the race was my favourite part of the race. There were two pens at the start, one for the Irish team and one for the Northern Ireland team. It looked like a battle scene. Apparently according to Instagram at the start I looked like Morgan McDonald who is a tanned hairy Australian runner, I will take this as a compliment and a sign that I should keep the hair and keep using the fake tan.

7. The Old Man Mile

I think that the first lap of the race was very cagey, I suppose it was a master’s race but the start was very slow, it was sort of like the old man mile you have to start doing when you get over 30, I ended up leading, not because I wanted to but because no one else wanted to. I lead for about a kilometre before the Northern Irish lads and Toldo warmed up and tore off into the distance.

8. Keep Her Lit

I think that running in Northern Ireland is great. It is kind of like a race abroad as it sounds completely different during the race. It's not very different but it is different enough to be refreshing. The crowd seemed to be more encouraging than back home, they shout stuff like Keep her Lit that you see on t-shirts in St George’s Market.

9. Motivation

I think that it was very difficult to find a reason in the race. I didn’t really want to badly beat anyone in the race. The Northern Irish M35 lads were in a different league to me so I couldn’t race them and you couldn’t really hate fellas like Niall O’Riordan so I couldn’t motivate myself when he went past me. It was an odd race on that front. In the end I just tried to run as hard as I could which is an acceptable way of racing too.

10. M35<M40

I think that the problem with the M35 category is that it gets harder every year you get older. Then you reach the M40 category and it get inundated by the people who refuse to accept M35 as a category. Next year I would like to run against the English, Welsh and Scots too. I might as well take advantage while everyone else my age is afraid of being called a masters athlete it might be my only chance and its a great day out.

10 Things I Think About The National Novice XC

1. Instruments of Darkness

I think I should have taken the 11pm peasant wagon back to Glanmire on Friday night like I had planned. But sometimes the instruments of darkness win us with honest trifles like a box of quality street and you end up in Reardens at 230am when all the sensible people have gone home in all the taxis. Ah well at least John didn’t leave the key in the door and lock me out on the coldest night of the year.

2. Rest Day

I don’t like taking rest days, I don’t know what to do with the free time. I decided the Novice was worth one. It’s very strange behaviour really because I know it makes me perform better, it’s like having some EPO in your fridge and not bothering to use it ever, ridiculous. I felt fantastic today, ridiculously good, heart rate hit 187 during the race which is way higher than normal, I must have been well rested and very fresh. Supercompensation.

3. Fish Wife

Because I had a rest day on Saturday I had literally nothing to do on Saturday, thankfully I had been locked out of the house on Friday night at 330am so I slept in until 12. For some reason I decided that I needed a bag of chips from the Fish Wife at 630 on Saturday evening, I don’t know why, intuitive eating I think. I normally have pizza from Novocento before a race. I think the rest day might have confused my body. God it was good though, lots of salt. Salt is excellent for running.

4. Froomebutamol

I think I prepared excellently for the race, I got up at 11 had a tower of power and 5 coffees for breakfast. I took my thyroxine, vitamin D and probiotics all washed down with a yakult. Then I had a Fluimucil in some sparking water as I was a bit congested, great stuff that. Before the race I had 2 puffs of the Froomebutamol that I got in Spain. I had an Irish one too but I reckon the Spanish one has to be better. I was definitely under 1000ng/ml.

5. Warm Up

I think that I would run 200 miles a week if I lived in Waterford, not because there’s absolutely nothing else to do there but because they have that beautiful greenway. I did my warm up with Iain and his GAA short wearing friend. I’m pretty sure that wearing GAA shorts in a cross country race is more illegal than wearing sunglasses. It definitely looks more ridiculous.

6. Posers

I was glad to be back on an Irish start line today. There were no Spanish posers with impeccable hair, the closest thing to a Spaniard was probably Denis Coughlan. I couldn’t wear my sunglasses because my lux meter was reading less than 200 which means that with a pair of category 3 sunglasses you’d technically be blind. Mitch wanted to wear his too, it was very disappointing. I had bought new ones in Spain and all.

7. Doubleplusgood

I think cross country is a lot like 1984, you have to learn to love cross country. At the start line all the lads looked terrified like they were about to be sent to Room 101. I don’t think they love cross country. I on the other hand love Big Brother. I’d turn the pain up more if I could, hurt more, hurt better, turn the pain into power. War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and all that.

8. Course

I think I hate that little evil hill on that course, if they’d take that out of it I’d probably have won, it’s too steep for my long tanned shaved legs. They don’t like it, they told me every lap, screaming they were like a GAA player in February. The main hill was ok I can run on that gradient, the descent was beautiful, I floated down it like a giant gorilla chasing a smaller gorilla.

9. Conor and Others

I think there is no passion in Conor’s running style, it’s like he has been programmed by an excellent software engineer. He pranced past me on the third lap looking like he was running up Raffeen on a Sunday long run listening to John Meade telling excellent stories. It’s horrendously irritating, I really hated him at the time. Then Brian pranced past too in a similarly detached dispassionate manner. It’s almost like he learned from Conor. Ah well at least it helped the team.

10. My Precious

I think I like winning shiny things, we somehow managed to finish as third club team so I got a nice shiny medal. It’s a pity they didn’t have a podium like they do in Spain, that would have looked excellent on Instagram especially as Gearóid Ó Laoi was taking lots of photos. Some year Athletics Ireland should run the Novice in Spain like the NFL play in London, people would like it and I could wear sunglasses. I’d probably still beat Mark Walsh too.