World mountain running championships

[pjd]

Good luck to Tom who's running for Ireland in Italy on Sunday.
All uphill 14km and 1150m of an ascent

http://www.wmrc2012.it/eng_default.htm

Theres appears to be live streaming on there website.

Hogans no.1 fan

[don]

World Championships no less, very best of luck Tom. Any chance of a race report and an insight as to how it's really done? Best of luck Dena too, great to see you back racing too.

[frankb]

Good luck in this big venture - some achievement to just be taking part in this!

[DavidC]

Good man Tom, world domination or nothing! Best of luck.

[BShaugh]

well done Tom - savage

http://www.wmra.ch/index.php?option=com ... 3101&cat=i

86th from 136 in the worlds and 4th Irish man home

[DavidF]

Nice one Tom.

Are there no mountains in Ukraine?

[frankb]

You are in serious company now - well done

[Tom]

Cheers for the best wishes lads. Much appreciated. Did I hear some of ye have qualified to rep Ireland as well, we don't do half bad for a small club.

Ukraine athletes looked more like shot putters than runners.

My first world championships started out with a 4am drive to the airport to meet up with the rest of the 20 strong team and catch the red eye to milan. Tired but upbeat and optimistic we arrived in Milan around 11am to be told that we would have to wait till 3 for our bus to bring us to temu. The tight Italians decided it would be best to squeeze two or three country's on each bus, so we were stuck until both the Canadians and the Ukraine shot putters arrived. A further 3 hours on a bus driving from the 30* sunshine of Milan to the hail of temu we arrive at our hotel exhausted but the legs need to get moving so we head out for 40 min run to get the blood flowing.

Awake on Saturday morning to monsoon like weather and I'm seriouly worried as I only have racing flats with me that have zero grip. As anyone that's been away racing will know the day before is unbelievably boring. A couple of short runs and a whole lot of lying around doing nothing and that's about it. The only excitement of the day coming with the arrival of the drug testers to test one of our senior women. So bored I nearly wish it was me they came to test.

Race day and the clouds have gone and the temp is up, happy days. The juniors and senior women ( some serious talent in this group sean tobin 17 ran 3.45 for 1500 this year and sarah mccormack 15.26 for 5k) left the hotel early to catch the bus and ski lifts to their respective starts but as the mens start is a 5 min walk from our hotel it's more sitting around studying the course profile and pics and thinking what the f*^k am I doing here. Finally get to the start and spend more time looking at the Africans warming up than getting myself ready. Their amazing they jog around in military style formation dancing more than running.

11am gun goes and the elbows fly, as we enter the narrow almost vertical streets of temu. The first 2k are probably the toughest of the race as we wind our way through the town and up into the forests. 3k in we reach the races only decent 800m of twisting single track similar in steepness to the downhill track in bunclody. A couple of hundred in I came to a 90 bend the brakes don't work and I'm off down the slope on my arse, crawl back up and I've lost around 15 places. The next 4 km is rolling hills and actually enjoyable but then we exit the forest and have a 300m hill that's so steep I pass people who are crawling on all fours. Back onto more runnable ground and with the snow covered peaks all around us we climb up through the supporters who were amazing it was like the tour de France with the crowds closing in and running beside you with their flags and drums. With 500 to go its all level to the finish and I kick for home determined to catch a Swiss and czeck runner, pass the Swiss guy who gives up but the czech guy kicks with me and we fall across the line in the same time. Lungs are on fire, legs are in bits, can't stand up but I'm delighted, my own personal goal going out was to score on the team(4 to score) so job done.

[don]

Serious stuff Tom, great to hear the inside track. You're right about the day before the race, foreign tv channels, language barriers and then Nooo drink . Excellent result, 86th in the WORLD

[DavidC]

Congratulations Tom on behalf of everyone in the club, competing at world standard is a brilliant achievement.

Here's your report on "the front page"
http://racing795.com/2012/09/06/world-m ... hips-2012/