Why we need more events like Ginger Runner Virtual Run #GRVR16
A bunch of people around the world ran for two hours on the same day. And it was brilliant.
If you’ve ever Googled for video reviews of running shoes, you’ve almost definitely landed on a review by The Ginger Runner, Ethan Newberry. For a long time, that was all I knew him for and I bought several pairs after confirming that he liked them. Then I discovered Ginger Runner Live, where he does long interviews with ultra runners live on YouTube. These are my goto podcasts whilst running slowly, along with Bad Boys Running, The Ultra Runner Podcast and Adam Buxton (who may not be a runner :-) ).
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, November 20, 2016
Timoleague to Courtmacsherry and initial impressions of Elephone Explorer Pro
Whilst you can dip your toes into action cameras with this, the video quality just isn't very good.
One of my fave things to do is watch videos made by Ultra Marathon runners and videographers. The views are always stunning and instantly make me want to go out for a run. My first attempt to do similar in Run Forest Run was a bit of a disaster as the rain killed my phone.
We’ve had an action camera for a few years that my bro-in-law kindly gave us. It’s a Contour GPS.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, October 2, 2016
The Berlin Marathon 2016 - A race for everyone in a great city
A fantastic experience to be in the same race as the fastest long distance runners in the world
Our build up to Berlin had not been great. Between holidays, Red Hat Summit in SF, Red Hat Tech Exchange in Vietnam and a week of post-Vietnam illness, I only managed to get a few long runs in. D’wife also tripped whilst running, less than a week beforehand, and smashed her face up badly. But we had done the Clonakilty 10 Miler which we both felt went well. So we flew from Dublin the day before without too many nerves.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, October 2, 2016
The Walkist Manifesto - From Greenways to pathways everywhere and the future of Ireland's health
It's time to make a decision on what this country and its people will look like in 20 years time.
Intro I began this post several months ago. It started quite simply - I wanted to congratulate those behind the wonderful Waterford/Deise Greenway and encourage Cork County Council to embrace a West Cork Greenway and execute on it. The Waterford one is partially opening this week.
However the more I thought about it, the bigger the “vision” got. What I’m going to present here is obvious in many places, controversial in others and possibly pure fantasy.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Tough as Leather - The Story of Sporting Legend John Lenihan
An all-time great mountain runner from Kerry
Finally a book review on the blog. I’m not sure where I heard about this book, probably Twitter, but damn it’s a great story. I’d never heard of John Lenihan until 3 weeks ago. Then I read this Irish Times article and my jaw was on the floor. He has not only won the Carrauntoohil mountain race 19 times, he still holds the record of 1 hour 11 minutes and 43 seconds.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, September 19, 2016
Altra Lone Peak 3.0 first impressions
Great trail running shoes
Now that I’ve done my first trail race, it’s time for my initial impressions of the Altra Lone Peak 3.0. Back in June I got a pair of LP 2.5 in Sports Basement in San Francisco. They were supposed to be my first pair of trail runners but I found them so comfy they immediately became my daily shoes. When I went to get another pair in Europe I learned that they were about to be replaced with the 3.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, September 19, 2016
Run Forest Run trail race report. Loved it!
My first trail race with two of my kids on some of the best bits of the Wild Atlantic Way
As you may have read in my previous post, I’ve been dipping my toe into running off-road. The phrase “trail running” still seems pretty rare in Ireland where I see “mountain running” mentioned more often, and “fell running” in the UK.
Last week my wife spotted on the Running in Cork blog that there was a trail run on in Castlefreke/Rathbarry on Sunday 18th called Run Forest Run. It instantly got me interested as it was [a] nearby and [b] only 5 miles long.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, September 19, 2016
The Seven Heads Walk, Fuschia Walk and Lusitania Trail is one of West Cork's best kept secrets. Just go.
More people should know about the Seven Heads Walk aka The Lusitania Trail.
Shortly after we moved to Bandon, over 10 years ago, I bought a bunch of Ordnance Survey maps of the area and two books by Damien Enright called “Walks of Courtmacsherry Bay & The Seven Heads” and “Walks in and around Kinsale”. We had high hopes of being outdoorsy. To our shame, the most we ever did was to haul the kids along the short track in Kilbrittain woods, the even shorter one in Ballinspittle woods and the tiny bit longer one in Dromillihy woods.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Friday, August 26, 2016
A year of running updates
It's been a very quiet year for this blog. I'm aiming to post more regularly about running locally.
As has been the case so often over the past 15 years of blogging, I’ve been very remiss in my updates. I’ve had a ton of things I want to write about, like the Waterford Greenway and how adventure/outdoor tourism could be a much bigger business here. But that’s for my holidays.
Today, as I move this blog to Hugo and GitHub Pages (what a journey it has had!), I thought I’d just give an update on my running.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, July 10, 2016
Support KildareStreet.com if you care about democracy
Most people in this country seem happy enough to have it run by imbeciles and criminals, so it’s a relief that some people actually care.
Most people in this country seem happy enough to have it run by imbeciles and criminals, so it’s a relief that some people actually care.
The official web-site which holds the records of the Oireachtas is the kind of incompetent mess that can only have been designed to be that way on purpose. Luckily John Handelaar built KildareStreet.com a few years ago to shine a light on the goings-on in the Dáil and Seanad.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, November 8, 2015