Wicklow Way Relay 2010 - a backward glance

Better late than never, could be the Setanta Wicklow Way Relay B team mantra, but my poor excuse for this late report is that the rogaine has been eating up the all the midsummer daylight hours available, and to be honest, I did need to let the dust settle before hitting the keys...

Firstly, well done again to the Setanta A team, brilliant result – not totally unexpected, given the current form of many on the team, but all praise to Hazel for putting a great team together, with more than a little savvy in matching runners to legs.

Now for the report from the Setanta 'B' team aka Animal Magnetism, in reality, those who had sufficient motivation to respond to Philip's desperate scattergun email to club members past & present, and those with some tenuous connection with the club or the race – 'whatever', as I hear my daughter Fionnuala's enjoinder echoing in my head, 'just get on with it'.

OK, right, we did end up with a bit of a ragbag team ranging from Jacqui Howard, a talented in-form adventure racer, to myself, a slightly nobbled returnee after a decade of non-orienterring or mountain leaping with a cartilage tear in the right knee to boot, but with special reference to Bobby Buckley, back orienteering this season after a layoff which put me to shame – he was carrying, not a knee or ankle niggle, but a quadruple heart bypass !

Race day...downing my coffee at 6am on Saturday morning, I realised it felt warm and humid already, with a clear blue sky portending climbing temperatures – why am I doing this? Oh yeah, it's 'for the team', 'running in terrain'... now where's the suntan cream, & the water bottle...

Get to Curtlestown for the handover early, hang around for what seems like an age, Philip comes in a bit later than the estimate, his hamstrings probably playing up, off I go.

The first section of my leg is downhill, I don't push too hard as I know there's a long uphill, but jeezus what's that noise like a train as I hit the pleasant level riverside section – orienteer Ger Butler steaming past at a rate of knots (he was only fastest on the leg, a full 2 & a half minutes clear of Peter O'Farrell, I repeat 2 ½ minutes clear of one of the top mountain racers in the country) ... I push all the way to white hill , steady on the way up, but am passed by 2 dutch runners in tandem, the shame of it slightly mitigated by passing a guy who's dying on the last pull up white hill. When we crest the hill & start down i really suffer on the railway sleepers, my right foot blistering badly, & get taken in last 50 meters by a strong female runner – yes, BOC, I was 'listing', but still just about upright enough to hand over to you, pal.

BOC (Brendan O'Connor if you want to get all formal & Linkedin ish) had a steady run on the short & sweet 3rd leg, but hey, given the form on the Donegal 3 day you should have been made to suffer just a little, shoorlay?! Bitter & twisted, moi? 9th fastest on the leg not bad at all though...

Leg 4 – to say Mark D'Alton's run was heroic, to me, does no justice to to the grit & determination (& no doubt a major element of lunacy) in competing the leg in a respectable time with a broken left wrist, sustained in a horrific downhill bike crash in the Blessington ROAR only a few weeks previously...

He handed (collapsed) over in glendalough to Kieran Crowley for leg 5, who had driven up from Cork that morning, & obviously had expended most of his navigational energy in reaching the start – yes, he did (eventually, after a couple of pints) admit to go slightly astray, but self-corrected before too long, hung in there & made it down the steep descent to Drumgoff to send Jacqui off on leg 6 looking fresh & determined under that cap...

Waiting down in Aughavanagh, it became apparent that something was astray when Jacqui failed to appear – it turned out that, having completed the Cork city marathon the previous weekend, she had developed a groin strain just after the downhill turn, & after a few phone calls, BOC was despatched to collect her, but soon after that she literally hobbled down the track to finish – that was stickability above & beyond the call of duty, fair play Jacqui for hanging in there, hope you're back on track by now...

Aidan Coffey had, sensibly, been sent out on leg 7 when there was no news of Jacqui, and unfortunately, like Kieran, he took a wrong turn. Whether it was through frustration or because of time constraints, Aidan headed home after finishing – commiserations, Aidan, we've all been there, done that, so thanks for not giving up & finishing the leg.

Consequently, Bobby Buckley, our anchor leg runner, went off in the leg 8 mass start, cheered on by myself & fellow corkman Kieran (the rest of our raggle taggle mob having decamped to the Dying Cow to cheer/jeer the final leg runners passing this semi-legendary country pub).

For me, the sight of Bobby, a former international marathon runner who only 2 years previously had that aforementioned quadruple bypass, running the lanes of south Wicklow with a glint in his eye, intent on the job in hand, bringing the team home, reminded me why I still do this – Bobby had been so competitive in his day that he once overtrained himself into a hospitalisation from pneumonia, but here he was, slogging it out for the team, finishing in Shilelagh with a smile on his face. Hey, and we weren't even last !

We are all, or have been, competitive & driven, but what the Wicklow Way relay reminded me of is that mountain running still attracts that maverick element, including those who could place well in road races, but choose instead to run the hills, the woods, the meandering boreens for virtually no reward or recognition... we love the terrain, the informality (but the events are still so well run, thanks Joe & Nora yet again), the tinge of madness – I mean, where else would Graham Porter be allowed to act out his rocky horror/ringmaster persona but in the untamed valley of Glenmalure?

Thanks to Philip for organising & sorting the logistics, thanks to all on the B team of crocs, auld ones, injured and navigationally challenged – now, who's up for next year?

Denis Deasy