Twenty-three of our members (or affiliate-members via Wicklow Wolf RC) competed in the 20th Edition of the Wicklow Way Relay.
Top-10: always the objective
Ambitious plans were put underway early in the year but once it became clear that our four highest ranked runners this season could not attend, objectives were hastily readjusted to just preserving a treasured club achievement: having finished in the top-10 in all seven editions we have competed in. It appeared more difficult than ever with a competitive field. I even seemed intent on sabotaging this process myself by entering a company team alongside my co-coach in Running Coach Ireland – Eoin Flynn (and they promptly finished 7th).
In the relay you will always gain (and sometimes lose) spots due to time penalties, lost runners, disqualifications or injury and this year was on different. You have the best chance of success by avoiding large problems and then being in a position to pounce if an – on paper – slightly stronger team has a mishap. From a Wicklow perspective, it was interesting to see if we could get one up on either of Kilcoole or Parnell AC – our local rivals: a sort of extremely informal ‘Wicklow Trail Relay Championships’.
Kilcoole returned for their second outing (having been 4th in 2019) whereas it was a first for Parnell as a full club team (having aided our team on two occasions with 2 runners).
As is the norm many ‘club teams’ had a few ‘day transfers’ and Parnell were bolstered by Lucy O’Malley (Inbhear Dee) and Bernard Fortune (SBR) while some of their own heavy-hitters were busy at the National 5 mile or running for other teams (the horror!) such as Daire Finn who promptly set the second fastest leg 7 time of the day with a 78-minute effort.
Strong Wicklow athletes were scattered across the teams such as Mountain Swifts (with the Bell brothers from Kilcoole joining Ronan King from Inbhear Dee), or Roundwood’s Noelie Kavanagh who ran the 3rd fastest leg 2 for ‘Wicklow’s Finest’ and the Clash Bangers and Bally Clangers made up primarly of Wicklow club runners.
A lot of our own members and affiliate members also ran for the ‘Laragh Legends’ and ‘Wicklow Wolf RC’ and ‘Team Luna’. The medals, however, were a battle between Dublin and Cork outfits.
Leg 4 – a litany of errors
(runner: Marcus Murphy 46:38, prediction: 46:10. Laragh Legends: Gavin ken)
Many of the main contenders ran into issues on leg 4: Parnell’s Liam Kenny, Raheny’s Patrick Conroy and Rathfarnham’s John McAuley all took wrong turns and lost substantial amounts of time. Stealth Stones took the largest of all deviations – adding about 4 km out and back to the route resulting in Johnny Sheehy running 79:32 for the leg!
Glendalough AC 