Report from Peter O’Farrell (Rathfarnham AC), the multiple Gaelforce winner who had to settle for 2nd this year, in a thrilling sprint finish with Pardaig Marrey. You can also see Peter’s race stats, speed, heart rate, etc. on Garmin here. Full results for all 2,400 competitors.
“4.20am. awake in my customary pre Gael Force accomodation – the back of Paul Mahon’s van.
5am. Onto the bus after bolting some meusli and jamming the contact lenses in. A bit a chat to a rower from Limerick and a bit of a snooze and we deposited on the beach. I Miss Siobhan’s briefing with a final purge in the portaloos.
6.36am and we’re off, as per usual I’m feckin miles back in about 30th position as we pass the waiting wave 2. A young fella, Antony Murray, has taken off and is miles clear which doesn’t worry me but when Gary Bailey, Eoin Keith and Padraig Marrey disappear into the middle distance with about 10 others I do start to wonder about my whole slow start. Nothing I can do about it and I always hate these first couple of kilometres on the road – every year the same little voice says what’s the point of all this running when you should be asleep and sure you’re miles back anyway. It always takes me about 30 minutes to get going and sure enough in the last 4k of the run the lads come back and I hit the kayaks in 4th with Eoin and another lad close by. Diarmuid Collins and Gary Bailey are suffering on the water (always take the longest kayak you can see) so I get to the far side in 2nd behind the fast young fella and quickly Diarmuid and him open a gap, Eoin is running well too and the 4 of us soon come together on the bike stage but we’re all crap and can’t get any momentum going. On the climb and descent I find myself on my own in the lead which is a bonus at this stage in the race but sure enough Padraig Marrey comes up to me, sits in for a minute and then he jumps. I hold his wheel on the first jump which seems to perplex him for a minute and then he goes with plan A again and jumps and this time he gets away. Two triathletes catch me a few km later and the 3 of us stay together across the new offroad section to the bottom of Croagh Patrick.
I’m happy enough at this stage, predicted finish time of 3.40 so had taken one gel on 2.10, took another on 2.40 and dry swallowed a dioralyte. The plan was a final gel at 3.10 but never got round to eating that. Ate one small homemade (thanks Orla) meusli bar on the cycle.
Padraig isn’t too far ahead on the Reek and I catch and pass him on the cone, I think I got about a minute of a lead at the top and I was possibly too happy with things at this point as I had a very average descent off Croagh Patrick and crucially Padraig was catching me all the way down. I don’t think I could have gone too much quicker as I had buried myself catching him on the climb. I never look back so I didn’t realise how close he was till he passed on the rough skelp section and then we had some fun tearing down the skelp at a ridiculous pace only held up by 6 horses on the track in front. Padraig got away then on the tarmac and I started worrying about the other lads behind and really put everything I had left into the cycle to the finish. The finish however held a sting in the tail and I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw Padraig dismount and start running. The race head is a funny thing, looking back now I can see he was too far ahead but at the time I KNEW I could catch him. Unfortunately for me I ran out of race and crossed the line in 2nd.
In the end I was beaten by a man with a huge heart who wanted it more then me on the day. We both knew the strengths of the other and in the final analysis he won with his descent of the Reek – a section I should have been quicker on. His strong cycle was cancelled out by my strong reek climb so Well done Padraig and also to Tom O’Dowd in third, it’s never easy to beat Eoin Keith so holding him to 4th was a great result. Apart from not being 10 seconds quicker I think I ran a well paced and judged race and am as fit as I’ve ever been so as far as I’m concerned chapeau Padraig!“
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