Ring of Kerry Cycle Part 1

Last year was the 800th anniversary of the founding of Waterford so as good a time as any to take part in the Waterford Viking Marathon (well the quarter one anyway!). I had done a few 5k’s and our first official race was a 6k in Duncannon but this was a 10.5k! But we had said we were going to do it so my darling wife and I started our Couch to 5k training and completed the race and got our medals. I really enjoyed the running but I obviously don’t run properly because for months after my knee was in a lot of pain. I was telling someone this and they suggest cycling as it would be easier on the knees (a fact I would later question!). I got sorted with a hybrid (mongrel) bike, it’s a cross between a racer and a mountain bike, through the bike to work scheme (Shh! I’ve never actually cycled to work but it’s my to-do list!) and set off into the Sunset. I loved the cycling and actually prefered it to running. Of course cycling around the lanes of Wexford were soon not enough and I said I was going to do the Ring of Kerry hoping nobody would notice! But they did and I had to man up and get training because it is a 180k spin up and down feckn mountains!. Aside from the actual doing the grueling cycle the registration was a mountain to climb itself. Following the ROK on twitter and facebook I waited eagerly for the registration date as did several thousand ( yep thousand) other fools! So many that the site crashed 5 mins after going live! After a few hours the ROK committee had the good sense to call a halt and try to iron out the glitches and retry on the following Saturday. I was ready with Bren on two devices and me on my phone. It looked like groundhog day as the site struggled to cope with the numbers trying to sign up (any normal person would at this point see this was a sign and realise it wasn’t for them but not me!) I refreshed and refreshed over and over and finally was redirected to the site. Unbelievably me and 4500 other lunatics finally registered…………. no turning back now!

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