10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The 93rd Cinque Mulini

1. The New Marathon

I think that cross country events like Cinque Mulini will eventually become the new marathons. Cross country races abroad are a far superior experience to marathons. Cheap flights (Ryanair), cheap four-star hotels with jacuzzi baths (Poli Hotel), no problem entering and a unique experience where you run through a few old houses. It’s only a matter of time. Trevor Cummins and Mark Gallagher have already been converted.

2. Milano Nord

I think that much like the marathon weekend it is important to have a shakeout run the day before. For our shakeout run we took in two venues, the incredibly cold but somehow ice free Milano Nord ParkRun for Mark and Rhona followed by a influencer style collab run by myself and Trevor around Parco Sempione which must be the best city centre park for running in the world.

3. Campione Trevor

I think that it was great to get to watch Trevor and Mark run in the masters race early in the morning on Sunday, they ran the same course as the international race, the only difference being three laps instead of four. Trevor who much like myself is experiencing new club fever ran like John Meade and ended up winning his age category. Not since Michael Herlihy beat me badly in a session a few months ago have I seen a man as happy as Trevor going up on the podium to receive his gold medal for first in the M40 moderately old man category.

4. Bravissima Rhona

I think that the great thing about international cross country races versus marathons is that a couple can both run and not need childminding to do so. It’s something that is rarely thought of in Ireland. Rhona’s race started after Trevor’s podium with two laps of the course which means two runs through the houses. The only reason I discovered the Cinque Mulini XC is Rhona, she had heard about the race where you run through the houses and had always wanted to do it, so was great to see her have bravissima and dai! shouted at her as she navigated the frosty course in the glorious November Italian sunshine.

5. Rules and Regulations

I think that I am very lucky to still be able to run the international race. Technically it is limited to non-moderately old men as you can’t enter online with a date of birth after 1990, luckily I am very good at reading all the clauses in the regulations and it said that if you could run under 33:00 for 10k you could enter as a moderately old man so I emailed them and was let in. I think it may also have helped that I ended up 96th in the World Cross Country Tour last year mainly because of the race in Castlegar, just ahead of Aregawi and Crippa.

6. Drills and Troy Parrott

I think that the warm up for these big international races is nearly the best part of the whole experience. Getting to see the elite Kenyans and Ethiopians doing their A,B,C skips while trying to do my own hobby jogger version of an A-skip is great fun. To make it even better I spotted a fella warming up in full Hungarian kit so I ran up behind him and whispered Troy Parrott in his ear. I was surprised to have him reply in a Dublin accent but it turns out that he is coached by Feidhlim Kelly so he caught the accent too. Istvan was his name, he beat me badly.

7. Great Sport

I think that running is the only sport where a total amateur like me gets to compete side by side with the best in the world. On the start line I was standing beside Iliass Aouani who had finished third in the World Championship marathon. I had been talking to him the day before at the elite athlete presentation as he was in college in America with Ryan Creech who he said was a legend which is correct. Anyway there is no other sport where this happens. It is unique, then the race started and I realized that there is a reason why this doesn’t happen in other sports as I wasn’t able to keep up.

8. Don’t Come Last

I think that when you are one of six moderately old men in a field of 100 youngfellas a lot of whom are Kenyans, Ethiopians and World Championship medallists the best you can hope for is not to come last. This was proving quite difficult initially as the race went off at a pace that I simply cannot run. Luckily for me there was a small bit of muck at the far side of the course which slowed them down a little bit allowing me to gain a good bit of a buffer from the tail end of the field.

9. Trevor in the Houses

I think that running through the houses is every bit as good as it looks. It never gets old, I would happily run this race forever it is so perfect and great. The first time through the house there was even a bit of a traffic jam which meant that I had to stop and wait for the backlog of runners to clear. Then on the last few laps I spotted Trevor who had somehow snuck into the area around the houses which is not for spectators, this was very good for me as he managed to take some rare video footage of a tall moderately old man like me navigating the houses expertly.

10. 81st

I think that I did very well to finish 81st out of the 100 starters despite being the second oldest man in the race. The fact that there was an older man than me running in the race is great because it probably means I can run it again next year. The fella that won it Amanuel from Eritrea was born in 2007, 21 years later than me which is very scary but also great. Once finished I collected my nice cup of hot lemon tea and returned to the nice hotel before a nice pizza and some wine at the other reason that this is a far better weekend than any marathon TheBirra. Everyone should run Cinque Mulini, it is the Boston Marathon of cross country races.