Well whaddya know, I’ve only gone and run my half Cowell! Now my loverly tracker I had created to mark my progress to this, my 50th different event, so it was with some emotion today that I coloured in the final square on the L. I’d chosen Castleblayney as my mother had lived there for a while when she was a wee girl. She still reminisces about having to walk a mile to the National School, where they were taught in Irish, but all she can remember is ta rasha fada, ta rasha Fol (fly away Peter, fly away Paul).
Access:
Google maps offered me a choice of 3 routes, all of which would take me around 1 hour and 8 minutes. My own sat nav couldn’t recognise “Castleblayney”, so I chose the familiar outward route down to Dundalk and turn inland at junction 17. Crossing the winding Irish Border a few times as I headed west, the roads were good and nice to drive on, a few tractors to sit behind, but a very pleasant drive. The instructions on the parkrun page were good, and was pulling into the ample car park at Muckno Street well before 9. The sat nav took me back through Keady and Armagh, so a few additional broder crossings…..
Facilities:
Parking aplenty, I did struggle to find loos onsite (though they were available in the little room used afterwards).
Crowd:
Numbers are small here, you are guaranteed a good finish position! Youngish crowd, and Minnie and I were thrilled to meet little puppy Charlie. No doubt he will be barkrunning at some stage in his future!
I got chatting to a couple touristing from London, whose local was Ally Pally, and who were also visiting family at Dundalk. They were fascinated that my parkrunDANCER challenge had used those particular runs for the D and A.
Course:
I do love a forested course, and this was delightful. Two laps through beautiful trees and shrubs, past lakeside and ducks, and foxgloves and rhododendron and a crumbling pile that I really want to win the lottery and restore. The path is compacted stone, there’s a few testing inclines, and I swear that second lap is longer than the first. It’s quite narrow in parts, if you need to overtake.
Strangely Appropriate Song on Shuffle:
I’m still working on running without headphones, but Classic Rock FM on the way down played Supertramp and “It’s Raining Again”. The weather on the way down was very wet, with a lot of surface water, but as I reached Castleblayney a little patch of blue sky appeared and the sun shone for as long as needed during the run. Being so tree lined, there’s plenty of shade from the sun.
Gear:
My Garmin actually worked, for once! I wore my cow leggings, Hoka trainers, and I’d adapted my milestone 50 Tshirt to list all 50 of the events. This Tee had previously done duty as a 150 T, so I had to find a way of disguising the additional 1, hence the hashtag coverup. I got talking afterwards to some people interested in running with dogs, so I showed them my waist belt and running line. Having arms free is good, dog on a short but bungee line, and dog using a harness that pulls from the body/ chest rather than the neck. No extendable leads, no way no how.
Time:
I was pretty happy with a sub-30. I did my usual fast start, and was overtaken by 3 females, and so ending as 5th female encourages me that I can return some time in the future and nab a podium position!
And the rest:
It was all about the cow. I’d put a lot into preparing for this. I’d had the T shirt printed (huge thanks to Paul Knight at Print NI), and worked out how I was going to do a cake. Sainsburys came up with the yellow and black icing, and the “decorate it yourself” cake. Lakeland had the cow cookie cutter. And if I say I used Stolichnaya vodka for the cleaning of the cake do you think they might send me free samples?
I know there were some photos taken on the day, but I haven’t been able to access them. When and if I can, I will add them in.
Coming soon – “50 ways to reach a parkrun – da movie!”
All My parkruns:
NI (and other) parkruns: summary list
Filed under: Ireland, Parkrun, running | Tagged: Castleblayney, Half-cowell | 1 Comment »
Dancing At Lunacy 