10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Castlegar Open XC

1. Real Running

I think it has been too long since my last cross-country race. It’s been nearly a full two years which is about two years too long. Cross country is the best type of running, there are no magic shoes, no GPS watches, no pacing and no one cares what time you ran, it’s just about where you finished and who you beat.

2. Galway

I think that my hair felt at home in Galway, it is very Galway hair. People in Galway are very different and interesting unlike in Cork where they all wear the same clothes for fear of being noticed. No one had hair like me on the start line in Galway but there was an excellent Mohawk which is like the opposite of my hair, much more aerodynamic.

3. Saturday

I think that all races should be on Saturdays. I know lots of people work on Saturdays but they work on Sundays too. Saturday is so much better a day for a race, Sunday races interfere with Saturday whereas Saturday races interfere with nothing. 1245 is also an excellent time for a race.

4. Racecourse

I think that TV cameras are very bad at showing how hilly horseracing tracks are. You would think watching horse racing that horses don’t run up hills at all and that when the commentators are talking about the hill on the course they are talking about the sort of hill that Michael Herlihy says there is at the Farm. The racecourse in Galway is very hilly, undulating.

5. Winter

I think that it was very apt of the winter to show up for the race. It started raining just as we lined up for the start. It wasn’t like the rain that’s been around for the last few weeks which is pleasant to run in. This was proper cold Galway rain that makes you wish you weren’t wearing a singlet. It didn’t make any difference to the ground, but it made it feel like a proper cross country race.

6. Who’s Who?

I think that cross country attracts an entirely different crowd to the road racing scene. I was definitely one of the oldest people in the race and most of the runners probably didn’t have an Instagram account. The only one I really knew was Mark Walsh so I decided I would try and beat him for the day. The start of the race further confirmed my suspicion that everyone in the race was less old than me because it tore off like the start of the National Novice.

7. What a Course

I think that the course was excellent. A 2k lap normally feels desperate long but this lap was very short. There was everything, long grass, downhills, uphills, left hand turns, right hand turns and a jump over hay bales. The only thing I would change is to add more bales to the jump to make it higher and harder. This would be a better course for the All Irelands than that disgrace of a course in Abbottstown.

8. Not Too Bad

I think that I was very happy with my race after 3km. Liam Brady was just in front of me and I hadn’t seen Mark Walsh since the start. Then the adrenaline started to wear off and my shoelace started to loosen.

9. Wardrobe Malfunction

I think that I will have to tape my shoes with duct tape in future. It is a horrible feeling 3km into a cross country race to feel your shoe start to come loose. Then you feel the laces whipping your right leg. Then you start to slow because you are beginning to think about stopping to tie them and then Mark Walsh flies by confirming that you need to stop to tie them if you’re going to have any hope of catching him.

10. The Worst Mistake

I think that having shoelaces come undone is one of the worst things that could happen you in cross country race. It is entirely your own fault and it costs you the chance of losing in a sprint finish with Mark Walsh, instead you just get to lose miserably, watching him finish before cross the line yourself a few seconds later. I will have to come back next year to put it right.