Conor's Bandon Blog

I took up running in 2009 to try and lose weight. It didn’t work but I ended up loving the sport anyway. Despite having completed over 25 marathons and a handful of ultras I’m still a terrible runner and brutally slow. Having said that, I see 2021 and early 2022 as the pinnacle of my running, to-date. The Kerry Way Ultra Lite in 2021 was the first time I’d ever finished a race “mid-pack”.

DNF? For non-runners reading this, DNF means Did Not Finish. In my preview post I ended with “Let’s see how I do. Particularly when the rain comes in at night.” On the plus side, the rain came in during daylight hours. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the start. Nope, nope, let’s thank some people first. Thank Yous Elieen - The woman, the legend. Words like “community” and “culture” have become overused and devalued.

The Kerry Way Whilst millions of people have completed marathons over the past few decades, ultramarathons are still pretty niche. Ireland has a bunch of fantastic ultrarunners and a handful of amazing ultramarathons. The big kahuna of them all is the Kerry Way Ultra, which is about to have its tenth outing on September 2nd and 3rd. The Kerry Way is a wonderful trail that traverses the entire Iveragh peninsula. Many people travel from the US and mainland Europe to do multi-day hikes of the route.

I got those Pandemic City Blues Four weeks ago I’d never heard of Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Last weekend we hiked around it and I’m still struggling to find the English to describe the beauty of what we saw. How we got there is kind of a funny story. We humans have an ability to let trauma fade, which helps us in countless ways from childbirth and broken limbs to the death of loved ones.