Since I last posted, in our household, there has been 4 birthdays, a Christmas, a New Year and a trip to Disneyland Paris. All has gone well so can't complain. Well aside from the stomach bugs and colds.....and that was just me.
So the focus now is on the Rotterdam marathon in April. I have to knuckle down now to some serious training and stop eating so much rubbish (which is compulsory at Christmas). Im back in the Gym regularly and took my first swimming lesson today. I swim like a person who's panicking. Panicking or drowning. Each time I put my head in the water I flail around like a complete lunatic. I thought swimming was a graceful sport, all muscles and smooth moves. Not in my case obviously.
I'll miss my second lesson as I'm off to France on Friday for our annual trip to the Snow Race. I'll be blogging next week about waste deep snow during the race and my success on the piste (my skiing is comparable to my swimming so that was a joke.....

Trail Blanch Font Romeu 2007

What a week! We set off last Thursday afternoon on our flight to Girona, Spain. We had heard reports of snowless hills but were unconcerned. For me I hoped it meant the race was over-with quicker than in snow. Niall and Finn were set for the 11k along with Barry, who we were staying with. Kevin, Bronagh, Tara, Karen, Grainne and Greg were entered for the 23k and myself and Tony for the 51k. The first couple of days were spent relaxing in Perpigan and registering with the organisers.

It was an early start on race day, getting up at 5 and heading for the hills in Barry's van. There was the usual chaos at the start which was handily located in a gymnasium. Although we were due to head off at 8am there was a half hour delay for speeches etc., which caused much irritation as the nerves took over!

Then we were finally off! The 3 distances started together from a track and stayed on an icy trail together for a few kilometres. By the time we separated the sun was out and I was feeling quite warm already. The course took us off on some open mountain trails for a while till we regrouped again at the top of a cable-car section. this was the first really severed downhill and lasted about a kilometre. I was finding the ice very tricky and parts of it were starting to melt which meant mud as well as ice under foot. This wasn't my favourite section and it meant I was very slow descending. As soon as it levelled out onto trail I felt better but as soon as I picked up some speed I tripped on a root of a tree and badly hurt my hand. The French were so encouraging, every time I fell someone would ask if you were ok. They would offer a hand going across icy/ muddy sections. I think at one stage Karen got offered a hat to keep her warm, which turned out to be her own!
Luckily enough my hand wasn't too sore and I continued on to what was more and more icy sections and unfortunately rocky steep sections which had to be scaled with your hands and feet. I was finding this difficult (constantly in fear of falling) with the big lump on my hand and at one stage wanted to just give up! There was even a roped section we had to swing down! At this stage I was in 4th position of the women.
By the time I hit the 30k mark I felt better though. I decided it was time to start fighting back and lucky for me after one more tough climb there was lots of running could be done. There was lovely foresty zig-zagging sections which allowed for much greater speed and my spirits were really lifted to be finally moving quickly through the kilometres. We eventually got onto the Nordic ski tracks and although they were completely iced over I felt much happier to be climbing upwards with small steps. A few more kilometres of this and I was catching lots of people, many of whom were walking at this stage. Moving quickly through muddy forest trails and with about 5k to go I reached the woman in second position, Corinne. She appeared to be limping badly and struggling. We exchanged some words and she said she was ok. The last couple of kilometres included running up a ski slope, which last year I had to walk up at the end of 32k, but this year I was flying! I couldn't believe how quickly then that the finish arrived. I crossed the line in 6 hours 40 minutes, about 20 minutes behind the first woman. I really enjoyed the last 20k!

I was eager to find out how the others had done, and how they had coped with the conditions. Bronagh had been badly bruised and Kevin had gone off course! The results were pretty spectacular. Finn had won the 11k. Niall was 3rd. Not sure of Barry's position. Bronagh and Karen were 2nd and 3rd in the 23k with Tara not far behind. Grainne and Greg had good runs also in the 23k. I'm sure Kevin was very disappointed, it's so frustrating going wrong, and especially if you've travelled a long was for a race it's a real shame not to finish. Tony finished strongly in 8 hours, finding like me the treacherous ice and rocks difficult but the finish runnable.

When I analysed my splits it confirmed that I had been moving much more quickly in the last couple of hours. After about 4 hours I was in 64th postion. The split that they call the 'retour' had me at the 12th fastest for that section. I finished in 42nd overall.

The next couple of days were spent skiing, which I was really unsteady at! I was petrified of falling but I suppose that was from all the falling during the race. Grace and Hannah also got to ski the day of the race which was thanks to Barry for looking after them. So they got three full days skiing overall and were experts by the end of it! The Clonliffe ladies ski team were ably assisted by Irish instructor Niall!

We stayed with Barry and Sharon for the week again this year in Villefranche de Conflent. We couldn't have been looked after better. Barry drove us around everywhere and saw to everything. Even at night time he was ferrying us around when he could have been at home with his family. We couldn't thank him enough for everything. Their home is so stunningly beautiful it's a real privilege to stay there. It looks like something from a fairytale!

I've put up photos here.

Dublin Masters Cross Country

I ran my first race as a Vet yesterday in the Dublin Masters Cross Country. It was held in ALSAA after the Council wouldn't let the event be run in Tallaght. Anyway it went well for me and I was happy. I've put up photos here. There seemed to be a friendly, laid back atmosphere to the whole event and that was great cos some of the other events at Dublin or National level can be quite nerve wracking and tense.




Fionnuala and Bronagh had brilliant runs in the Hellfire Mountain race,see results here. Well done!




Next up is the Trail Blanch Font Romeu. I blogged about it here and also here when I listed what we might need for this years race. We're flying out on Thursday but there's not a lot of snow yet so it may be more like a regular mountain run. That would hopefully make for a faster time as we spend less energy and time tredging through waist deep snow!
Looking forward to the holiday too and the couple of days skiing.

Snow Race 2007

I still haven't got round to sorting my photos properly. I wanted to sort them into categories/ online albums but I wasn't able to do that with Flickr, maybe it's just me, so I'm looking at another website where I can store them properly.

Well the gang met last night to go through the details of our trip to France in January. We're doing the Trail Blanch Font Romeu 2007 and staying with Barry and Sharon Phelan. See previous post about last years race. Those going are Bronagh, Fionnuala, Karen, Tara, Tony, Niall, Kevin Grogin and myself. The girls are far outnumbering the men this year!


Here's the Document put together for the trip:

Snow Race 2007
Trail Blanch Font Romeu

Packing Light. Baggage limit of 15 kilos which is size of average sports holdall. Previous hand baggage allowance was: max weight 10 kilos and dimensions of 55 x 40 x 20cm.
New rules about flight carry on items: see attached.
Info about new carry on restrictions

Warm clothes needed for everyday wear, not excessively cold last year though, jeans are ok with jumper/ warm socks/ jacket. Very cold at night particularly.
Warm fleecy pyjamas for bed and warm socks! (Seriously very cold at night!)
Not much “dressing up” gear needed.
Hairdryers and tea/ coffee facilities in each room, I think.
Swimwear for two trips to thermal baths.
Water bottle for carrying around or for making up drinks
Bars/ food/ high 5/ electrolyte stuff etc. especially if carb loading
Tylenol/ Anti inflammatories/ Bio Freeze for after race
Sun block/ lip balm
Aspirin (we took one a day before, during and after trip– supposed to help with flight and altitude sickness).

Pre-Race Running Gear:
Gear for two short running outings before race day. (Leggings, long sleeved top and jacket – probably re-use as you won’t get very sweaty!!).

Suggested Race Day Running Gear:
Jacket (may or may not be needed/ compulsory?)
Long Sleeved Top
Full length leggings
Trail shoes (see bit at the end……)
Gloves (I swear by my Lowe Alpine pair that I lost!)
Gaitors
Sunglasses
Buff/ Ear Warmers or Hat (I didn’t wear one)
Cropped top/ underwear
Tissues/ wipes
Camelback or means of carrying compulsory items:
 Water, bars, gels
 Whistle
 Survival blanket
 Head Torch
Running watch
Vaseline/ Deep Heat if you use it
Compeeds
Tylenol or Nurofen
First-Aid Items – up to yourself

Gear to change into after race and bag/ backpack to put it in: leggings, ski trousers, ski jacket, dry gloves, tops, hat, dry runners/ trail shoes, underwear. Bag for wet/ dirty gear.
Baby wipes for after (no shower facilities after race that I can remember).

In total at least 4 pairs of running socks.

Ski Gear
Jacket
Trousers
Ski Gloves/ Hat etc.

Requirements and things to remember:
To do now: Race entry form to be filled in and posted off to Barry
To do now: Payment with euro cheque or money order – can’t use regular cheques even though it’s all euro – made out ARAVO Aventure (€25 or €30) and it willm cost €6.35 for this.
To do now: Barry’s form for skiing/ hire etc.
Medical Cert (Barry knows someone in France will do it for €21 – bargain!)
Passport
Flight codes/ print outs (Web check in?) (7036 and 1985 our flight numbers).
Holiday Insurance – bring details with you esp. if it includes ski insurance
Payment for B&B
Money for Ski Hire/ Ski Lessons: private ones can work out better and save lots of time/ hassle than being part of a class.
Camera/ Video Camera
Don’t forget the tri-colour for photo-ops with the gang! (Clonliffe vest even just for the picture?)

Flight is at 6pm Thursday 18th Jan. Check in will probably be from about 4pm.
Arrange to share taxis/ book a taxi or book parking, Quick Park , although their website only works half the time. €6 per day.

Websites:
Snow Race
Cool website for Packing Tips .
To keep an eye on the weather: Local Ski Weather .
Does no harm to brush up on the French!
Gauche is left
Droit is right
Tout droit is straight on
There’s lots of websites with free lessons!
A good phrase to learn is ‘’How Much further?’’ cos the route isn’t marked in kilometres! (When you find out let me know).

Shops for Gear:
Great Outdoors off Grafton Street.
Amphibian King in Bray. Only sells shoes but they do that gait analysis thing
53 Degrees North, Carrickmines (website not working), great shop though.
TKMaxx for ski bargains.
Millets.
John Buckleys sports shop in Cork.
North Face New Shop on Temple Lane South

Just a bit about trail shoes:
Salomons Trail Shoes: about €140 in the Great outdoors. I have these and they’re pretty good.
Inov 8 and Puma Trailfox available from Amphibian King. Inov8 are very popular among the Adventure Racing community so they must be good.
Nike Gortex off road shoe available in 53 degrees north and you could try the Nike outlet in Kildare for a bargain.
Walsh’s available from John Buckleys in Cork, by post about €90.


p.s Grace will bring the GHD.

Snow Race Trail Blanch January 2006

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, fig rolls, fruit cake, orange slices, chocolate bars, cakes and sweet things of all varieties, water………………….. no that wasn’t the lunch menu on our trip to France, that was refreshments at the water stations during our Trail Blanch mountain experience last Saturday 22nd Jan. 2006. Liamo reckoned we’d put on weight! And he would have been right if it wasn’t that this turned out to be one of the toughest mounting running (any running!) experiences I’ve ever encountered. If we thought that a nice 20 mile amble through some light snowy tracks was ahead of us when we signed up, we were in for a shock!
Initially 5 of us decided we’d head off to France for the Trail Blanch 2006 32k Snow Race after someone suggested it would be good training for our real test this year, the Tour of Mont Blanc: myself, Tony Kiernan, Eugene Coppinger, Gary Moralee and the aformentioned Liam O’Riain (the last two being from Tallaght AC). My brother Niall (unfortunately another Tallaght AC man) couldn’t resist the lure of some altitude training and he joined the group.
Turned out that a few more were heading over from IMRA and NIMRA and in total 16 of us ended up booked into the home of Irish couple Barry and Sharon Phelan in Ville Franche in the Pyrennees, less than an hours drive from Font Romeu, the race venue. I actually think Liam, Eugene and Gary only signed up for this race in the hope of bumping into ‘Our Paula’, Font Romeu being where she has an apartment and does her altitude training. She never materialised.
Race day approached and we were so well looked after by Barry and Sharon. Home cooking, lots of it, even Liam’s favourite: berry crumble. You can see now a lot of this holiday involved food as well as running!
Race day itself and the conditions were perfect; it was cold and windy in the morning but nothing troubling. Knowing what gear to wear in conditions you’re not used to is always going to be difficult but as it turned out running tights were an absolute essential, as were sunglasses which I had managed to forget but Tony made the ultimate sacrifice and gave me his! Any talk by runners of this being a training run (usually Tallaght Athletes), and just wanting to get around was met with a swift rebuke and a reminder that a race is a race and we hadn’t gone all that way for a training run (Clonliffe Athletes!!).
The race itself began and ended in the ski resort of des Airelles in Font Romeu. If we thought runnning UP a ski slope was bad it was nothing compared to the first severe downhill we faced after only a couple of kilometres. It was slippery and severe and the snow was deep. It didn’t last long luckily and there was a couple of kilometres of hills and flats, most of it runnable. Nothing could have prepared us though for the hour or so of waist deep snow that we encountered in the mid to late stages of the race. It’s a funny sensation when you fall in snow that thick because you put your hands down to stop yourself and your hands keep going through the snow till your face down in the stuff! It was the toughest part of any race I’ve ever done. You were going nowhere but using lots of energy to struggle through the snow. It just seemed to go on and on as each step sank into the snow and you had to climb out from every step.
The course itself wasn’t marked by kilometres and at no stage until I was 2 hours into it did I have a clue how far I’d ran. At that stage I was told I was first woman and also about half way. It was marked by flags on trees and lets just say that no Clonliffe Athlete went wrong or got lost!! You had to wear a chip type thing on your wrist and key it in at every station, like in orienteering but it was electronic.
The last 10k began with a gentle uphill forest trail where we were met in the opposite direction by lots of skiiers. I was about 3 hours gone at that stage and couldn’t take anything on board except water. This meant I was struggling a bit for energy but the trail was so beautiful and scenic and it was a gentle enough hill that it could be enjoyed. For me it was the best part of the course. The last 5 or so kilometres included another ski slope (the button lift looked very tempting and I’m not joking), some more forest trail, some car parks and some gentle but tough hills to get to the finish. It was such a relief to finish. Mentally it was draining as the course changed all the time and you had to adapt the way you ran at each change. The French seemed to be genuinely delighted with the Paddy presence. At all times they were very encouraging and were great at dragging me through the last few tough climbs when all I really wanted to do was stop!!
We all finished well, tired and drained. I was thrilled to win the womens event in 4 hours. I was very surprised and even more delighted when I also got a ‘Queen of the Mountains’ trophy for a time trial stage in the middle of it. Kevin Grogan from IMRA won the M50 and we got some photos with the tri-colour!! Niall Coppinger ran a brilliant 3:32 and the rest weren’t too far behind. If there had been a team prize Clonliffe would certainly have won that too as myself, Eugene and Tony made up a trio!
If anyone is thinking of going next year, it’s a great one to do. There’s an 18k course run at the same time if you fancy a shorter event but it’s still very hilly and tough. Consider staying with the Phelans who you can read about in the last issue of Irish Runner. And you should tag on a few days on at the end for skiing. There were some race-organisational hiccups, lets say, with registration etc, but it paled into insignificance compared to the scenery, hospitality, thermal baths(yes they were great!) and with the added bonus of a bit of altitude training! And just look at what you can eat en route…………………..