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Brian Bruton Reports

Third place team in the relay, not bad for a hastily cobbled together relay crew of two recently recovered crocks and one of the glamour boys of Galway running. A thoroughly enjoyable weekend had by all. Mick Rice and wife Margaret, Alan Burke, Brian Bruton, and the flag carrier, Ian Shaw, made up a motley crew of runners and groupies who took on this trip. The group met in Cork on Sunday evening at a suitably high end fine dining Italian restaurant on the Athenry AC expense account, ( Thanks James) We were joined for the evening by Selina Da Silva who had just ran the 10 marathon in 10 days and was remarkably running Cork Marathon the next day, and her achievements put our relay jaunt in perspective.

A long evening of chat, buckets of Diet coke, pasta and pizza loading later ended up in an early night as surprisingly all of us were a bit nervous about the next day – it felt more like the marathon I’d originally planned to do here than a relay . Next day I dropped down for a very early breakfast loading and left my beautiful roommate Alan Burke to continue with his beauty sleep and treatments in anticipation of being one of the first relay teams to cross the line. We had selected our young poster boy to be the man to cross the line in view of the fact the scrawny and unkempt state of the other team members might cause one of us to be stopped by the ambulance before the finish straight.

Alan and I headed down to the start at 9 am to see Mick Rice looking mean in the shades and sporting a fine tan, raring to go. We managed to catch the leaders at a few points and were pleasantly surprised to see Mick so far up – about 4th relay man after three miles. My nerves were just shot at this stage so we left then and headed to our starts, I think the fact that we were running for a team rather than one another made it more nerve-wracking than usual – knew we could not mess up or face eviction from the club... Anyway, got to my point , long warm up, had the stopwatch ready and was raring to go. We had set our target out time wise of about 2.37 before hand, and thought we were in with a top five shout. The minutes ticked by at my point – 13.9 miles, (Mick ran 13.9,I ran 6 miles, Alan 6.3) and only two relays went through and with no sign of the early leaders Leevale, Mick loomed into view through the phalanx of waiting relay runners.

1.24.10 was on the clock and the applause around from the other relays really lifted me as I grabbed the wristband. I’m an extremely slow starter and am usually left for dead for the first two miles of any race, this time though the adrenalin and long warm up seemed to kick in and I stormed off. I had 5.45 for the first mile, then bang , half way through the second I took one sharp left and hit a hill that knocked the speed out of me just like that, 6.05 on my trusty stopwatch for the second mile, spotted two guys behind me fifty yards back and said “oh dear” to myself as I felt the legs slowing…but then the competitive urge kicked in, and from then on nobody was getting by me in my leg…..My third and fourth miles had the same nasty hills in them five or so in total short sharp rises that really knock the stuffing and speed out of you, good support en route though helped me along, mile five was quicker again bit of a downhill down to 5.40, then the last mile was certainly even quicker and I came down the hill looking like a windmill flailing or a car about to lose its hubcap depending on how you look at it…it was all over and my first flat out run since January felt great.

Jogged in to town with a Waterford lad, and got to the finish to see the team again, and found we had ended up third in 2.37 as planned!!…Great buzz to run so far up a top race like Cork, It’s a credit to the city and is very well organized, and a great weekend away.. Well done to all my team mates, and support crew, especially Mick who banged out sixes all the way and really set us up for a cracking run, we young lads just about held it together to the end. Steamed back to Galway in the trusty Ford and we were pleased for once to see hard work pay off. Want the win next year though!!

alanburke

15 years 10 months ago

Congrats to Dave Dunne and James Lundon who both ran half-marathon relay legs , though not in the same team!

Conor Dolan put together a relay team too.

Diana Hogan -Murphy completed the marathon in 3:54:36, some going considering its only a short while after Marathon Des Sables.

Tony Nevin

15 years 10 months ago

Well done lads, great team work Alan, Mike,your club is amazing- ye will take on anything (with great sucess i might add), great to read your report Brian ,
FAIR PLAY TO YOU ALL!

Mick Hanney

15 years 10 months ago

Well done guys, a terrific result. Mick, when I spoke to you beforehand and you said that I could outdo my marathon PB achieved in Conn, I scoffed, not believing that I could but I managed it. You had confidence in me that I dug deep to find. Cheers, Mick Hanney

Mick Rice

15 years 10 months ago

In reply to by Mick Hanney

Great work Mick...onwards and upwards to Dublin. Forget about all that mountain running rubbish, 26.2 miles of flat tarmac are what you're looking for :-)

Mick.

Mick Hanney

15 years 9 months ago

In reply to by Mick Rice

Hi,

At least 2 good pictures of Mick Rice on the following slideshow courtesy of eagleac. He looks too relaxed to be doing 6 min miles doesn't he? :-)

http://www.eagleac.net/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,86/?g2_itemId=13794&g2_page=2

Cheers,

Mick Hanney