Cork Masters cross champs yesterday.
It was out in a field beyond sarsfields court.
A real novelty running XC so close to the city, out and parked up in about 15mins.
Another Novelty was they ran the Mens and Womens first so no hanging around for the Juveniles, wonder of wonders.
The course was a big steaming pile of mickies.
Two 500m laps of a small field before 4 1500m laps which were 4 switch backs up a hilly field, and a long run back down to the start. it was heavy underfoot, cow shitty and windy. the holy trinity.
Women and over 65 men off first. Grand job. cheer on clubmates.
Had a laugh off a fella from Eagle who i think won the >65, looked about 40. The auld lad on the tannoy kept openly questioning his eligability. I'd say the mob were out for birth certs by the finish.
The course layout meant warming up was difficult, there was basically no infield so nowhere to run without impacting someone's race. fuckit anyway.
All to the line, loadsa photos, off we go.
Ease into it for the short laps. Well down like the novice, what harm, picked my way to through the field pased 10 or 15 fellas. Grand job. in oxygen debt by the time i got to the top of the hill. Blown almost to a standstill by the wind, hit the downhill hard. That was pretty much how it stayed for the next 4 laps.
I got run down by a fella from behind on lap 2, overcooked the hill and couldnt hold him, turns out he was the over 60s winner, I need to go checking a few birth certs myself.
Lap 3 and 4 Took out a few runners, barrs fella and a guy from St Catherines but made no ground on the lads i had been chasing since the jockying had settled down. Ho hum, push to the finish for 33rd of 62.
Not sure where in my age category. Not DFL at least and for that I was thankful.
Overall happy out. Clubmate won it out, a great race to win from Barry Twihig and John Meade, plenty of team and ind medals in the age grades amoung the club.
Hard to compare this and the novice. Course yesterday was crap. I'm a good bit fitter now than in Oct.
I was 4 spots behind a fella from the barrs i know in the Novice and 3 spots today, Close to the median yesterday about 66th percentile in Novice so relative performace was grand.
The fella from St Catherines turned out to be none other than the Conna Maradona so I was unreasonably pleased with that.
And I didn't get lapped.
On the flip side i need more hills so as not to lose ground in the middle laps.
Overall I'll take it. That's me done for 2023 except to keep the show on the road training wise.
Roll on 24
