10 Things I Think About The Campaccio XC 2026

1. €1 Espresso

I think Italy is great, what a great country, a country where coffee isn’t out of control. €1 for an espresso at a café just outside probably the best running park in a city anywhere, Parco Sempione. There was no Trevor to run with this time like I had done before Cinque Mulini, although he was still in Milan, managing a team of Great Islanders and introducing them to the joys of Hotel Poli and The Birra. I should be getting commission at this stage.

2. Straight Down Rain

I think that the rain in Italy is much better than the rain in Ireland. Italian rain comes straight down because there no wind, also because there is no wind it’s not even cold. The weather for the Campaccio weekend was nothing like the almost summery weather we got for Cinque Mulini in November. I was hoping for enough rain to turn the course into a mucky swamp like last year but unfortunately all we got was enough rain to make the course a little mucky and a little soft in places.

3. How Dare You

I think that I was horrified to see M40 on the envelope when I went to collect my number for the race. The Italians do things differently, along with banning juvenile athletes from wearing spikes, age categories are based on the year of birth not the actual date so being born in 1986 makes me M40 already which is terrible as I’m still only 39 and a half. The only good thing is if they let me run this year I still have 5 more years left which is great.

4. Burundian Warm Up

I think that it is worth going to these Gold Label XC races just to see how the real athletes prepare for the race. An hour before the race just as Rhona was getting ready for her race, the Burundian ON athletes were warming up with a most impressive, synchronized skipping routine. I can do the skips but not this type of skipping, this was next level skipping, no wonder they are so much better than us.

5. Zero Craic

I think that the best level of running is my level, the level where things like results and times don’t really matter and it is just from fun. There was very little craic in the warm up pen before we were brought to the start line. I tried talking to the Burundians in the ON kit but I got no response. So I moved on to David Nillson a Swedish runner with Puma who was probably the second oldest man in the race after me albeit with a slightly faster 2:10 marathon time. He was a little bit more responsive than the Burundians, then we were called up to the line for the real craic.

6. Lesson Learned

I think that the most important thing with running these cross country races in Italy is that you have to get out fast at the start otherwise the race is over. I think I learned the lesson a little too well though as after a few 100m in Campaccio I was not far off the top 20 and ahead of my Swedish 2:10 marathon runner friend. This didn’t last long and as soon as we hit the twists, hills and turns of the middle bit of the 2k lap I began to be passed and passed and passed some more until it felt like I was last.

7. Turn Right then Turn Right

I think that I need to remember that the Campaccio course has some unique challenges that other cross country courses don’t have, the middle of the 2k lap is a mixture of almost all right hand turns which is a terrible thing when you have a very bad right ankle like I do. It didn’t seem so bad last year when the course was 95% muck but in this less mucky edition it was proving very difficult, a difficulty that was amplified by my poor choice of footwear in the Dragonfly 2 instead of the Dragonfly XC although it’s almost a course where a trail running shoe would be the best choice.

8. Backwards

I think that it is an awful feeling to be passed by loads of runners. Everyone in Campaccio is really good at running, most of whom are probably doing double threshold and stuff like that, so any mistakes like going out too fast will be punished badly. A lot of people passed me over the first three of the five laps. The only advantage of going out fast was that it seemed very unlikely that I would end up lapped which is my main concern at these races anyway.

9. Francesco Meade

I think that I have done enough of these races now to have some enemies. It took until the second last lap for my enemy from Cinque Mulini, Francesco, to pass me. I had just beaten him back in November so I decided that he was going to be last person that was going to pass me. As I got to the end of my fourth lap I saw the Burundians on the other side of the course heading out on the last lap so I was sure of not being lapped which made me happy.

10. Hot Lemon Tea

I think that the best part of the Campaccio is the hot lemon tea in a special Campaccio mug with the masot on it that you get after finishing the race. I didn’t manage to catch Francesco but I did hold off everyone else by sprinting as hard as I could on the track which makes up the last 300m of the lap. I collected my hot tea said well done to Francesco and walked back over to my shoes where I explained to an women in Italian that her son would be fine with 9mm spikes. Then I went back for a second cup of tea.

1. PGA Tour vs LIV Golf

I think that we have reached a crossroads in running. Racing is being replaced by time trials, time trials that can only be run on idyllic days in Valencia and no where else. No one cares where they finish, you have fellas crossing the line in 497th place celebrating like they won the Olympics, it’s mad. This didn’t happen in Golf, no one cares if you shoot 59 on an easy course. It’s about Augusta and the challenge, maybe it’s a bit of stretch to compare a field a few miles outside Bweeng to Augusta but it’s my Augusta.

2. Boys in the Better Land

I think that I probably shouldn’t have watched the Valencia 10k before heading off to Bweeng. It was sort of like being in fifth year in school and seeing the easy Leaving Cert Maths paper the sixth years got, thinking that’ll never happen again, they’re going to make it harder next year. Do we all have to go to Valencia? I’ve been there before and I prefer Bweeng and Italy. I suppose there’s always Grange Fermoy on New Years’ Eve, that was fast this year.

3. The Trifecta

I think that it was great to finally get a day with perfect cross-country conditions. We basically had the opposite of Valencia 10k. We had wind, very strong big wind, wind that whistled through the electricity wires, wind that broke tents. We had big rain, the sideways rain that you can video even on an old iPhone, rain that hurts you like its hailstones but is actually only fast-moving big droplets of rain. We had muck, all kinds of muck, sticky muck, slippy muck, dirty muck, treacherous muck, cold muck, deep muck, something for everyone. Fantastic stuff, perfection, idyllic, bliss.

4. First Annual Athletics Ireland Award for Excellence and Sportsmanship

I think that I should get an award from Athletics Ireland for offering shelter to a rival club runner in the stormy horrific weather. As I was searching for the horsebox with the numbers, I came across Trevor Cummins from our great rivals Great Island Athletics. He was trying and failing to get changed outdoors in the cold rain and wind. It was a far from glamorous sight as he did the flamingo pose in a failed attempt to remove his soaking pants. He asked if he could use my car to get changed into the green and white, “of course, no bother, come with me to the purple Scirocco”.

5. Sheltering Behind a Bush with Barry

I think that there is only one problem with the conditions that we encountered and that is staying warm and dry before the start. The organisers did a fantastic job, when you consider that it was basically a storm that the race was run in. Luckily there was a perfectly positioned bush where I stood with Barry Twohig to shelter before the race. I tried to persuade Barry to go home as it was too wet and windy and he’d been there all day; he was almost on the point of leaving but then Dan Kennedy turned up so he had to run.

6. Point of Order

I think that I should have ruled Michael Herlihy out of order when he suggested not doing the two 500m laps that had been planned to make up the 7000m distance. “Just do 3 big laps”. I don’t know why I didn’t object; it could have been that Michael Herlihy is a big scary man that looks like he should be responsible for deciding how long that we should be racing for. Anyway no one objected so we were left to race over the shortened distance of three two-kilometre laps.

7. Bad Decisions Lead To

I think that I made a terrible decision when I decided where to line up on the start line. I picked the inside line because I thought we were doing the 500m small lap which would have meant a left hand turn first. Because of Michael Herlihy’s point of order the first turn was now right which meant that the outside was the place to be especially as the ground was better out there. You know who was on the outside, Barry Twohig. The race started and Barry Twohig was gone, I was left floundering in the muck, happy but floundering.

8. Gonna be Golden

I think that despite my atrocious start I still thought I might win. I was very tempted to barrel through the people who were in front of me on the downhill to the first corner but instead I stayed calm and waited for the course to open up before making a move up to second. I’ll catch him no bother on the downhill I thought, just get through the zig zags and it’ll be no bother. I was correct, up to the top of the hill and then down the hill onto the back of Barry Twohig. Phew, now just get up the big big hill.

9. Mountain Dew

I think that last year I said that there were two men I was terrified of on a course like this. Barry Twohig and John Meade. I was very right, very right. It is a pity that there wasn’t a drone following Barry Twohig up the big big hill so everyone else could witness what I witnessed. He clearly had some sort of insider knowledge about the ground near the tidy high quality fencing as he seemed to be almost magnetically attracted to the fence as he flew up the hill effortlessly, it was incredibly annoying, the only way it could have been any more annoying is if it was Barry Twohig and John Meade together and they were whistling or telling each other stories while flying up the hill.

10. Hyrox Bweeng

I think that Michael Herlihy was right to shorten the race to 6000m. I don’t know if we would have been able for 7000m of that. By the time the last lap came it was more of a survival contest than a race, I had given up on catching Barry and Michael Dullea was probably thinking the same thing about me in third. The last time up the hill was like what I imagine a Hyrox event would be like, my legs were burning and screaming no more, I felt like I was carrying weights. I barely got up to the top of the hill before jogging across the line as best I could as my legs no longer worked. Second to Barry Twohig at what was basically a day’s work for him isn’t too bad I suppose. I’m happy I chose Bweeng over Valencia. Always choose Bweeng.