Mooreabbey Milers Curley 4 Mile 2026

Mooreabbey Milers Curley 4 Mile

1. Children Chasing Conan

I think that it is a little-known fact that Galbally is the ancestoral home of Conan O’Brien. It is also the ancestoral home of me. This ancestoral link was the main reason I had for doing a four mile race a forty five minute drive from Glanmire on a Wednesday evening at 7.30pm. That and I also like races organized by the Mooreabbey Milers.

2. Sabotage

I think that I was very horrified to see Michael Harty parked up getting ready for the race when I arrived. I had said to Rhona on the drive up that anyone could turn up in Galbally but I was thinking more along the lines of John Kinsella or Niall Shanahan, certainly not Michael Harty who lives even further away than me and as far as I know does not have ancestors from Galbally and is not a Conan O’Brien fan.

3. Stop The World and Let Me Off

I think that it was great to have Kevin Moore’s father in the jeep commentating and playing excellent music for the race. The Galbally 10 mile race where I ran with John Meade and Michael McMahon to an excellent soundtrack is still my favourite race of all time by miles. Unfortunately once the National Anthem had been played before the start, no music was played for the rest of the race. Perhaps he thought that Michael Harty would not appreciate his course record being run to the sounds of the remix of Declan Nerney’s classic Stop the World and Let me Off.

4. Dog Impeded Warm Up

I think that it was a very bad idea to bring two dogs to the race. I was already cutting it tight to get to the race so when we arrived at five past seven I thought I would have plenty of time to do a warm up and jog up to the start. Unfortunately the dogs started barking like mad when I went to jog down to collect my number so I had to walk at 13 year old labrador pace to the hall and back. My warm up was the jog up to the start which was plenty as it turned out.

5. A Fitting Tribute

I think that I was even more surprised to see Aidan Connell on the startline than Michael Harty. Aidan had run and won the Stryker 4 mile road race the previous night just over the road from me in Carrigtohill. I had skipped it as I thought it was a bit risky, being only one day after the Brutal Battle of Bartlemy with John Meade. I suppose it was a fitting tribute to Curley who was never shy of back-to-back races or even two races in the same day.

6. Tactically Astute

I think that I probably went off a bit too hard at the start. Michael Harty had the race won within 400m, leaving me with only Aidan Connell for company. I knew that the last thing a fella who has run a race the night before wants is a fast opening mile so I ran the first uphill mile with the wind as hard as I could. It must have been very fast as I could easily have hit Michael Harty with a stone if I wanted to after a mile.

7. I Have a Gap

I think that I thought I had second place sewn up after about 3k. I had a bit of a gap on Aidan and felt like I was moving well in the Pumas. Unfortunately there was a little hill up to the left hand turn back to Galbally at the 2 mile marker and Aidan used this hill to close right back up to me for the primarily downhill run to the finish in Galbally

8. Man of the Rás

I think that cyclists turned runners are a fearsome species. First I had to deal with Barry Twohig, now I have to deal with Waterford’s answer to Barry Twohig, Aidan Connell. They are both viciously strong on any sort of hill, ridiculously strong, nearly impossible to follow. Unfortunately I got to witness this power on the final climb of the race just after 3 miles. I thought I had a good chance with the downhill run to the finish but on the little climb Aidan put in a dig that seemed impossible and opened a gap so large that I’m pretty sure he was going faster than Michael Harty at that point in the race.

9. Asymptotic Curve

I think that most people don’t think of running and times correctly. People think that if you improve from say 21:10 to 20:59 over four miles in a 6 day period that it represents a 0.87% improvement. When in fact because the performance has an asymptote, a limit that you can technically never reach, which in my case is probably about 20 minutes flat, this represents a performance increase of 15.7% which is amazing and excellent and also why that 119 minute marathon is difficult to understand because all humans are limited by their asymptote.

10. Podium, Irish Flag, Statue

I think that the post race setup was excellent. They had a lovely podium with the statue and the Irish flag flying in the background. There was no waiting around which was great when you have to drive back to Glanmire on a school night. I did my warm down with Diarmuid McNamara who I went to college with. It is terrible to think that we are both nearly 40 which doesn’t make any sense as we both look exactly the same as we did in college. Running must be great for the ageing process.