IMRA season 2011

ocnoc

Is it wrong to feel all warm inside for beating a crippled auld lad?

Peterx

Beating the competition is fine, calling them names is not. Too much coffee maybe?

ocnoc

PN is far from been a crippled auld lad.
I thought the big dirty smiley face might have given away my sarcasm...

Blog will be up in a bit.

donothoponpop

Great race today, a helluva battle between ocnoc and PN (who is the one responsible for the "crippled auld fella" tag in the first place if you ask me). The race between them seemed to have started weeks ago, and as they climbed towards my camera position on the initial climb, the lead was swapped every ten steps, or so it appeared, as they jostled for supremacy. Two of the best descenders around, the race was always going to be won by whoever would first reappear as a speck descending from Tone. Through the binoculars, I saw it was ocnoc, but 10 seconds behind him was PN. It was fascinating to watch them descend, often taking quite different paths. By halfway down, ocnoc was 15 seconds up, and he ran home to take the race. Both had a sizable time gap ahead of a strong Bernard Fortune. Well done to ocnoc for the victory!

PN- Having listened to him talk about the good old days for the past few years, like they were behind him, it was hugely fulfilling to see PN back doing what he does best, at the helm of races, ankles intact and functioning: smiling. Been a tough road for you, forcing yourself to train back from injury, its great to see your persistence pay off:)

T runner

Peterx wrote: »

Beating the competition is fine, calling them names is not. Too much coffee maybe?

He said i was breathing like Darth Vader half way up the hill. I would have laughed if i was able, as i did see the smiley face!

Great duel between the 2 lads. We had a good chat about the current strenghts of IMRA running before they upped it a little (or i downed it).

The last i saw was PN running hard up the final steep climb with Ocnoc following closely.

Went a little wide around the lake. Came off the summit a bit straight at the end but i had already lost 3rd place (Bernard passed me going a lot faster than i was as i dicked about on the heather trying to get up onto the ridge from the lake).

Classic route. A mountain running version of Knockdont.

Slogger Jogger

ocnoc wrote: »

Is it wrong to feel all warm inside for beating a crippled auld lad?

Which ones?

Slogger Jogger

Colm Hill descends to finish by Mick Hanney, on Flickr

I'm loading the photos to imra side bit by bit by bit...

Slogger Jogger

This boy can downhill..

DSC00139 by Mick Hanney, on Flickr

ocnoc

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

Which ones?

PN.

Just PN.

Fear of the unknown is a very very scary thing.
I am glad he isn't 23.... Beginning to question if he was joking when he said the mountains were higher, steeper, contained more heather and the people running were of better quality than there are now. I would say it on the fourm but someone would get insulted :rolleyes:

It is good for PN and bad for me that he can keep up.
He was in third gear. I relish the though of racing him down something steep and dangerous where he isn't concerned about his legs taking a hammering. He is an exceptional mountain athlete. I would relish racing him at his peak.

Youth is wasted on the young!

Slogger Jogger

What if (route options)...

NOC's suggestion is fascinating. Which way, which way...?

How about if the race was extended so that you had to visit a checkpoint at Glenmacnass before returning. Would swing the balance a bit towards stamina. In poor visibility it could get interesting.

Ar Strae

I think it's a bloody BRILLIANT idea! Would make for a hilarious race and keep the suspense of how people were doing until that last descent.

But yeah...I'd love to see that done in cloud! :-)

Ro

ocnoc

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

What if (route options)...

NOC's suggestion is fascinating. Which way, which way...?

How about if the race was extended so that you had to visit a checkpoint at Glenmacnass before returning. Would swing the balance a bit towards stamina. In poor visibility it could get interesting.

I'd say, just have free route choice. So you can go either way around the lake. Both would be energy sapping.

I'm unsure which way I'd go.
I reckon its its 49:51 but I'm keeping my mouth shut on which is which.

I'd nearly be tempted to go the opposite way to everyone else to try spook people out

Antigrav

ocnoc wrote: »

I'd say, just have free route choice. So you can go either way around the lake. Both would be energy sapping.

Clockwise is faster. I did it in 14 seconds less than last year

Dunebuggy

ocnoc wrote: »

Is it wrong to feel all warm inside for beating a crippled auld lad?

Great Race Report !! Thanks for the lunchtime read - a really enjoyable race.

And some awesome photos donothoponpop!!!!

ocnoc

http://youtu.be/VjKPYjG2hpo

copacetic

Just surround the letters bit in the tags:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjKPYjG2hpo

ocnoc

From Sunday, I couldn't help but do some analysis. And I know different days in the mountains bring completely different conditions but thats neither here nor there.

To fuel the debate on Left or Right, the descent time to the corner of the lake going left is 06:24, compared to 06:23 going right

If you go left, you have a pretty brutal climb, you'll have to climb the 247m in 1.44km (max grade 47%), however, going right you have the same climb over 1.57km (max grade 40%).

So in my eyes, its completely 50:50... Shorter climb on rougher terrain or longer climb on slightly more runnable terrain.

Play to your strengths... of course, this is all assuming you take the correct line

Dam I love mountain racin'

Antigrav

The clockwise vs anticlockwise thing with Tonelagee is not the main feature.

What I like is the continual challenge of the course in five main sections:

1. First it's the hard grunt of the ascent, with the added affront of wet feet from the boggy bit at the bottom
   
2. It's then over the top and into technical descending. Good landing points, but favouring the brave with the lake always looming at the side.
   
3. Route choice to the lake on both sides can gain you vital seconds. Everyone has a preference here and it's fun to see the field split and re-form with consequent losses and gains.
   
4. More hard grunt, but it's short and sharp. Getting the legs moving as the summit flattens can project you into the final descent.
   
5. And what it beauty :D This downhill rivals Brockagh for pure all out going with gravity. Every runner has a smile on their face. Until they hit the bog again :rolleyes:

donothoponpop

Who are this "GEN" team that has won the team event at Tonelagee? Must be new kids on the block, well done to them.

Stark

"Great Eastern Navigators". They're an orienteering club.

PositiveNegativ

Stark wrote: »

"Great Eastern Navigators". They're an orienteering club.

The correct article is 'The'

donothoponpop

PositiveNegativ wrote: »

The correct article is 'The'

Whoever they are, congrats to "The" New Kids on the Block.:)

jlang

Here's a curiosity: My Current Enduro Points total is less than my Maximum Enduro Point Total but my first IMRA race was less than 2 years ago. My top eight race points only add up to my current total, 0.3 less than the maximum total.

My guess is that when an existing race points multiplier is tweaked it won't cause all the possible ways the Max EP could be affected to be recalculated and I'm still being credited with a Max EP that I now no longer deserve.

Not to open the can again but maybe using elevation and elevation divided by distance as input criteria might give better race multipliers than elevation and raw distance. I'm more pleased with my performances in every race so far this year that wasn't the WWT but I get substantially more race points for crawling to the finish in that.

Peterx

I still break out the calculator and get my percentage, it's no more random than a subjective assessment of race difficulty and has the bonus of letting you know exactly how much harder you'd need to run.

T runner

Peterx wrote: »

I still break out the calculator and get my percentage, it's no more random than a subjective assessment of race difficulty and has the bonus of letting you know exactly how much harder you'd need to run.

Or how much harder theyd need to run.......;)

Ar Strae

Peterx wrote: »

I still break out the calculator and get my percentage, it's no more random than a subjective assessment of race difficulty and has the bonus of letting you know exactly how much harder you'd need to run.

+1 Yeah, I still do the same. (No diss to the new system, I just find it more intuitive) And I saw from the print-out at Tonelagee that the computer program still prints out the percentages.

As to GEN, Mick Kellett is one of those "new kids". Although he certainly doesn't seem to act his age ;-) Bit of a legend that man! Here's hoping we're still attacking Circuit of Avonbeg etc at his age.

Fun run in the Killiney Hill relay last night. Getting buzzed about the LL!

Ro

Peterx

WWR relay sold out already, any guesses on the number of runners going to show at Bray head?

This recession has been very good for the likes of IMRA and BHAA although pressure of numbers may be interesting this season. And we still have Dermot organising yet another race last Wednesday.

Slogger Jogger

It pains me to see the level of non-volunteering of masses of IMRA runners. I'd forgive the newbies as they are only getting into the hang of it, but theres seasoned runners there who are getting a free ride year on year to be honest. There should be something in the system to detect lack of volunteering and red flag the lazy feckers. Hardened IMRA runners should be standing up to direct and get more centrally involved in races. The call for RDs this week got more of the same suspects, and thanks to all.

For many, their token volunteering is a basic non-running activity like handing out the nos at a race. Thats fine for starters but its not enough. As you've said before Peter non-running volunteers is really what a RD needs.

Its the same-o same-o more often than not keeping the good ship IMRA going. Dermot should be disallowed from RDing or helping with another event this year. At minimum each committee member should step forward and RD or assistent RD an event too.

ocnoc

I would RD... but lack of a car and liability to get someone killed... or if someone said something out of order to me, i'd probably be blunt and tell them to kinda f off and burn in hell... I don't want to undo years of great work.

However, the ball is beginning to start rolling over some summer races which i shall be in charge of

Timmaay

ocnoc wrote: »

I would RD... but lack of a car and liability to get someone killed... or if someone said something out of order to me, i'd probably be blunt and tell them to kinda f off and burn in hell... I don't want to undo years of great work.

However, the ball is beginning to start rolling over some summer races which i shall be in charge of

Ha, I was race directer for the RásUCD 5k last wkend, and I can tell ya there there was strong words and plenty of Fs used throughout the day by me haha, it can be a tough job at times! I'm busy at the track season at the minute but will certainly try to help out with a few of the LL races this year.