Myself and Karen always look forward to the Mournes. Its one of our favourite races. This year we were entered in the B class and determined to erase any memories of last years DNF. Karen has been training well of late but I haven’t been able to do a whole pile struggling with achiles tendonites since the Rotterdam marathon earlier this year. I still managed to complete the IMRA Nav Challenges which were great preparation for the Mournes.

Preparation
We have a few Mountain Marathons under our belt and we’ve learned alot each time. As always discussions of what… Read the rest

First time to do this race – a lack of any real pre race training meant it was gonna be tough.  Perfect prep for our next big Adventure race, the 3 day Slovenia AR. Getting support crew was  more of a challenge than anticipated, but thankfully through our social network that is Facebook  Cormac Power came to the rescue – and I am sure I will say it as I go on, did an outstanding  job!!! My packaing was done in a rush late Friday evening. I managed to pack all the race gear  minus socks n jocks…oh  and… Read the rest

Despite being from Cavan and running cross country races at Tanagh Adventure Centre down the years I had no idea what Ivan had in store. Nothing new there so!

We arrived before 9am and the place was buzzing with activity. Everyone busy preparing their bikes, organising race clothing and food. 34 teams had entered for the race. The shorter adventure race format appealing to the masses. We registered and Ivan gave his race briefing to a packed audience. The start would involve a foot orienteering section followed by a short kayak. Then we’d be back on foot for the remainder… Read the rest

Again it was onto the bikes still in the lead  but uncertain for how much longer. From here it was a cycle to TA3, where most of the teams skipped the 4 CP’s en route, MA were the only team to pick up one CP along the way. MA had pulled back an 1hr 40minutes back into us at this stage and were moving well on the bike. We arrived into Surf n Dirt (TA3) Ahead of AJ’s and a slow transition had them out in to Tollymore ahead of us.

We spent 1:50 minutes running a lot of this… Read the rest

Note to self, when competing in 36hr races take the Friday off or at least a half day so as to have plenty of time to make the issuing of the Maps at 6:30 in kilkeel. Five weeks from having taken part in the Addidas Terrex 4-day , a couple of races like Achill Roar, Ballyhoura Mountain Bike marathon and the mourne mountain marathon here we were again on our way to another long race J. 36 hours doesn’t seem as bad compared to 96 hours, and we were really looking forward to this one. Packing was done the night… Read the rest

What an awesome adventure race. This was our first time to race together and we were all pretty excited at the taught of spending another 36 hrs in Lu-la land. We arrived pretty much together and with Team Irish AR we started to unpack the Jeeps and vans and prepare for 36hrs racing. First it was the bikes. Yep 1st dilemma, i had only SPD’s, never used them before. I had a borrowed bike and lets just say even the fire-roads were a challenge but more of that later… So the lads went on flats with Power Grips and we… Read the rest

This was myself and Karens first year to do the LAMM. We had been looking forward to doing it for sometime especially after our experience on the Mourne 2 Day last year. We both knew the Scottish Highlands were going to be alot more difficult but we wern’t afraid to jump right in and “see what happens”.

Race Preparation
I had studied the maps from previous years LAMM’s and examined the route choices on RouteGadget of the top teams each year. I knew the nav was going to be very difficult. We both have a good level of fitness and… Read the rest

Race weather had forecast rain but we were confident that the rain would stay away – we arrived 8:00am to Brians field, assembled bikes, sussed out the competition and enjoyed the pre-race banter as we put the bikes together. Pedals, map boards, Bottle cages and a new super bike for Karen to try out on the day. KTM Score 3 courtesy of Jenny. (Thanks Jenny and to Chris for sorting it for us). As we faffed control instructions arrived and Finbar and I got to work. We marked two maps and then worked out the  provisional route. Karen attended the… Read the rest

Woke up to a bright sunny day, this week trailblazers brought us to Annalong along the coast of the mourne mountains.  Roads were pretty clear for a Sunny Sunday morning as we chirped our way up towards Newry on the way to Annalong. This week we were well prepared even the garage toilets were an improvement on last weeks trip.

Conversation wasn’t too mental as the trip was short. We headed for the Marine Park, only one wrong turn and we were there. Thanks to Ivan for accepting euro.  Everyone was glowing in the sunshine and the time had come… Read the rest

With an 8 o clock start we (Karen Finbar, Richard) headed north for our first MTBO race. The Venue was Portaferry which was accessible via Strangford by ferry. The Journey was long and spent discussing our New Team name !! I can’t repeat most of them, but alter boy soldiers and Toxic Fluffy Vampire bunnies would  kind of cover the range of crap that we were coming up with. Onwards we went and the roads got narrower the drivers more irritating. As a result we didn’t cross on the ferry until 11:45ish. Registration started at 10:30 so we were pretty… Read the rest