We met as planned at 06:45am on Friday 06th in Heuston Station and travelled to Galway with Carmel from the Jack & Jill Foundation. Arriving into Galway at 10:00 I made my way with Carmel to Galway Bay FM for a pre run interview while the lads waited at Eyre Sq for the arrival of our Support Van and Darren our Driver / support crew. We didn't have a lot of time between arriving in Galway and starting the run and before we knew it we were running on the first leg of our journey towards Oranmore. Leaving Galway we were joined by a local runner Stephen Connaire from Loughrea and his local knowledge was a great help getting us out of the city.
The day was quite warm which didn't suit as I knew staying hydrated could be a problem but having the van no more than 10k ahead prevented any problems. The route to Oranmore and onwards to Loughrea was quite scenic and the time passed quite quickly. We shared the distance running an average of 10K at a time with the resting runners travelling in the support van.
Anthony didn't make the start of the relay as he couldn't get off work but made his way to Ballinasloe and joined the team as we passed through the town. He threw his bag into the van and started on the road to Athlone. Athlone was the end of Day 1 and shortly after arriving at our hotel we met up for dinner and took a tour of the town.
Day 2 was to start at 8am but based on our timings from Day 1 we knew a later start would still have us arriving on time into Mullingar which was 50K away. Unlike yesterday it was raining and looked like it was down for the day. My plan for today was to run what would have been my regular training run followed by a long recovery type run at a much slower pace.
As planned we passed through Mullingar on time and made our way to Athboy and finished slightly ahead of time in Navan. We were all fairly tired by the time we reached Navan didn't have a repeat of Friday night.
Day 3 and yet again we decide to start later than originally planned knowing that we had plenty of time to reach the Spire on Dublin's O'Connell St at 2pm. The route to Dublin from here was fairly direct and on the way we met up with family and friends some of whom would run with us to the finish. We took a slight detour as we approached the Phoenix Park to avoid road closures and made our way towards the Quays leading towards O'Connell St. Slightly ahead of time we slowed down slightly as we approached O'Connell St and then it was all over. The phone collection along the way didn't go too well but we did get a fair amount of media coverage which should in turn raise awareness for the foundation.
My thanks to all who helped along the way and thanks to the team that were asked to take part at short notice. I knew there wasn't time to train for this event and although the distances were divided up well I knew that if anyone dropped out due to injury or some other reason any other runner could have taken up the slack.
The Team:
Seamus O'Dowd, Clogherhead, Co.Louth
Anthony Lee, Clane Co.Kildare
Padraic Doherty, Maynooth, Co.Kildare
What a fantastic way to support a good cause!
ReplyDelete