Mud, Sweat and Tears: an Irish Woman’s Journey of Self-Discovery

By Moire O'Sullivan

Moire turned up to her first mountain race with the wrong shoes, wearing too many clothes, and with a body verging on obese. Though tempted to pull out and go home, she reluctantly runs.

Little did she know the race up Corrig Mountain would inflict such physical blows: Her lungs catch fire, her legs explode, her heart hits record speeds. And though it’s a gentle summer’s evening back in Dublin, on top of Corrig Mountain the wind screeches and the mist swirls as she lurches and lunges over grass, rocks, and rutted bog.

The next morning, everything hurts. But still she perseveres. Every week, she’s battling it out with the other mountain runners, adversaries on the hill. But by 9 pm, she’s joining her new found friends in the pub, discovering the wonderful healing powers of a proper pint.

Over the next three years, Moire competes in every mountain race she can find, whatever its shape or form: everything from ten kilometre sprints up summits, to one hundred kilometre runs requiring map and compass. She even dabbles in adventure racing, doing multi-day multi-sport races in teams of four in the barren wastelands of Ireland and Scotland. But it is not until she sets her sights on the still unconquered Wicklow Round that she finally finds her nemesis.

In July 2008, Moire made a solo attempt on the Wicklow Round, a gruelling endurance run spanning a hundred kilometres over twenty six of Ireland’s remotest mountain peaks. After twenty one and a half hours she collapsed, two summits from the end. Battered and bruised yet undeterred, she returned a year later to become the first person ever to complete the challenge.

This is her story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moire O'Sullivan
• Release date: Jun 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458185471

Moire O'Sullivan

Moire O'Sullivan is a mountain runner, adventure racer, author and mum.In 2009, she became the first person to complete Ireland's Wicklow Round. She subsequently wrote the inspirational mountain-running book, Mud, Sweat and Tears.In between having her children, Moire won Ireland's National Adventure Racing Series in 2014, 2016 and 2017, a story captured in the book Bump, Bike and Baby.Moire previously worked for international aid agencies throughout Africa and South-East Asia. During a stint in Vietnam, she welcomed into her home a dog named Tom, the subject of her latest book, The Hound from Hanoi.Moire now lives in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland, at the foot of the Mourne Mountains.

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Mud, Sweat and Tears

An Irish Woman’s Journey of Self-Discovery

By Moire O’Sullivan

Copyright 2011 Moire O’Sullivan

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To Paul, for encouraging me

To Andrew, for teaching me

To Pete, for loving me, and making me write it all down

Cover Photo: Nicky Cinnamond tackling the Caher Ridge during IMRA’s Carrauntohil Mountain Race, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

Photo by John Shiels, Action Photography, Ireland.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Running Scared

Chapter 2 - Mountain Mayhem

Chapter 3 - Summer Running

Chapter 4 - Lost

Chapter 5 - Mountain Marathon

Chapter 6 - The Weakest Link

Chapter 7 - 24 Hour Treasure Hunt

Chapter 8 - Pioneers

Chapter 9 - Warm Winter Weather

Chapter 10 - Alone

Chapter 11 - A Morning of Mist

Chapter 12 - Darkness

Chapter 13 - Unfinished Business

Chapter 14 - Around we go again

Chapter 1 - Running Scared

I can barely walk. Blisters ooze blood between my toes. Ripped skin hangs from my feet. A web of deep scratches covers my shins. My legs ache with a pounding throb that reverberates throughout my body. My lungs are battered and bruised from too many laboured breaths. I am bent over double from the weight of the bag surgically strapped to my back. A belt of raw skin encircles my stomach, grated raw from the incessant rub of the rucksack’s strap. Pain rages and runs rampant through every last muscle and every single vein. My body has reached its end.

But I will not stop. I cannot rest. I have not yet come to the end. Run faster…try harder…move quicker, I say incessantly to myself. I know what will happen if I delay, if I’m found out here in the dark.

Less than half an hour ago, I could see Tonduff North Mountain before me clearly, its green and brown hues illuminated against the setting sun. But now, the mountain is nothing but an outline, a silhouette looming large against the nocturnal sky.

I’m scared. The mountain is slowly being engulfed before my very eyes. After all these months of hard work, of sacrifice and preparation, I’m losing it all to the night.

I can’t go on. But I have no choice. I must climb to the top of the mountain. There is no other way out from this wilderness. My only escape route is from its summit.

I’ve run for more than twenty hours. I have climbed twenty-three mountains and covered over eighty kilometres. And with only three mountains and twenty kilometres left to go, I want to collapse and die.

I am trying to do what others have deemed impossible. I am trying to run around the whole of the Wicklow Mountains in a single, solitary day. I am trying to run over one hundred kilometres, up and down twenty-six of these mountain summits in less than twenty-four hours.

I am trying to complete the Wicklow Round. It’s been tried, but never done before. And now I know the reason why.

But I can’t let myself stop at this point. I need to snap out of this exhaustion and stay alert. There are too many dangers out here in the mountains to let myself rest yet.

It’s eerily quiet out here in the Wicklow Mountains. Down below, I can see the glow of Dublin City less than thirty kilometres away whilst it busies itself with a late night of drinking and carousing. Up here in Wicklow, there’s no such dancing or debauchery. There’s just me and these mountains, battling it out to make the Wicklow Round a reality.

I lurch forward, onward and upward, stuttering and stammering as I go. The shin-high heather scores my legs, fresh scratches appearing on top of old scars. Eventually the bushes get the better of me. They catch my foot and I fall, hitting the ground with a thud. I lie here exhausted, my clothes and hands caked in cold brown bog. All I can see is entangled heather, lying here at ground zero.

I want to stay down here, to curl up and die.

You’ve invested too much time and energy and effort already, I hear a voice imploring. You have to continue. You have to finish. You have to get up and go on.

My body is crying surrender, my mind is pleading clemency, but somehow, somewhere an inner spirit keeps fighting and telling me to soldier on.

Slowly my eyes adjust to daylight’s absence. I can still just make out Tonduff North Mountain in the distance. I have to visit its summit tonight, whether I like it or not.

Guided by my thin head torch beam, I painfully plod my way up the mountain side. As my body slows with every step, my mind begins to run riot. Thoughts of success and failure, thoughts of people and far-off places. Having already physically destroyed myself, I am now emotionally ripping myself apart.

Eventually, at the stroke of 11 pm, I reach the top. And there I stop.

There are only two more mountains to climb. I have three and a half hours left. I have in theory plenty of time.

But I don’t move. I stay where I am.

My body and mind have made their decision.

I cannot go on.

And with the relief of knowing it is over, I crouch down on the mountain top. And one by one, tears of disappointment, relief, obsession and exhaustion begin to trickle slowly down my face.

A Map of the Wicklow Round

Chapter 2 - Mountain Mayhem

If you ever end up in Dublin, Avril says to me, you should call my little brother. Avril is trying to help.

I’ve decided to leave Kenya after seven long years of stay. Avril is helping me make the transition, but it’s not an easy move to make. I look up at her through bleary eyes and agree I should track him down. Not that I’ll ever live in Dublin. Not when all I can think of is Kenya and how much I will miss my African home.

Now three months on, I accidentally find myself in Ireland’s capital, just as Avril prophesised. I have a brand new job and a lovely new house. But I still lack the abundant friendships that Kenya always had.

Distant memories of Avril’s offer slowly come to mind.

He’s into running and biking and does lots of mad adventures, Avril had explained, as I sadly packed my bags. Could maybe introduce you to a few people, invite you to some races.

I had always liked running. And I did need some new friends. So, with some shy reluctance, I decide to contact her brother. No harm in making new acquaintances whilst doing a bit of sport.

You’re just in time. The season is about to kick off, Paul tells me enthusiastically on the line. He turns out to be a veritable mine of information, cataloguing a long list of races around the country: everything from ten kilometres runs to marathons to ultras, right through from running to biking to kayaking.

But then again, Paul starts to ponder, maybe you’d be interested in real races, ones that involve running up mountains.

Running? Up mountains? Did I hear him right?

Well I love running. And I like racing. But combining these two activities in the mountains? Is that safe or even wise? How would I even run up a mountain? Would my lungs not collapse and my legs instinctively die? And what if I fall and do myself damage? What if I get totally lost and horribly die?

It all sounds so dangerous. And yet so oddly appealing.

It’s been nearly three months since I left Africa. And Ireland is terribly sedate in comparison. There’s no danger or disease or threats to make my daily life more exciting. Dublin has no power cuts or water shortages or food rationing. Bus drivers don’t yell insults at me. Men don’t leer at my white skin. There are no corrupt police officers to hassle me or civil servants to demand a blatant bribe. There are no street kids to pick-pocket me or threaten to smear me with human excrement.

Dublin is boring me to tears. I need something to recreate the flagrant danger that is intrinsic to Nairobi’s daily grind. I need a challenge of some sort. And running up mountains could be the death defying activity that I’m so yearning for.

Sure, why not? Count me in.

Great stuff, replies Paul. The next race is up Corrig Mountain this Wednesday. 7.30 pm start. Just a short jaunt of six kilometres. Shouldn’t be a bother to a runner like yourself!

Wednesday evening arrives and I’m feeling more than pre-race nerves. In the days since our conversation, I’ve begun to think that I may have bitten off far more than I can chew. True, I need a challenge, but running up mountains might be going one step too far.

I have noticed these mountains that Paul speaks of, barely visible from the Phoenix Park where I do my daily training runs. They look like a set of harmless bumps just perched beyond the city’s limits. But I know deep down they are treacherous and wild, full of every danger my mind can conjure up.

I am scared of Ireland’s mountains.

Sometimes the things that frighten us the most also fascinate us the most. I resolve to stick to my mountain running plan.

Paul suggests that I hitch a lift from him to the race. Meet me just off the M50 motorway, he says. It is good of him to offer.

How will I recognise you, Paul? I ask.

It’ll be hard to miss me, he says. I’ll be the one driving a blue van with a big red boat on top. Not many vehicles like that around Dublin you know. He’s teasing me in the way that only Irish lads know how. I’ve missed that sarcastic Irish sense of humour.

It’s wet and windy on Wednesday night, a typical Irish summer’s evening. I’m waiting by the roadside, getting more and more drenched by the non-stop dreary rain. I’m starting to feel cold and increasingly fed-up. And there’s no sign of Paul or blue vans or red boats floating down the road to hoist me out of my misery.

The longer I wait, the more time I have to convince myself that this is a genuinely bad idea. The mountains are meant to be just background scenery, something I should look at from afar as I run my merry way around Dublin’s flat Phoenix Park.

And anyhow, maybe I don’t need to always go searching for challenges. Sometimes it’s good to live a banal, stress-free life in a non-third world country. And sure, isn’t even the rain trying to tell me to give up and go home. It must be a sign. Suddenly lying horizontally on the couch in my sitting room seems far more fun than trying to run vertically up a hill.

But just as I turn towards home, there’s the van and the boat and Paul himself driving the lot down the road. It’s too late to retreat.

I can tell straightaway that Paul Mahon is a huge fan of the great outdoors. His van not only has a kayak on top, but it is crammed full of mountain bikes, climbing harnesses, wetsuits, running shoes, maps, survival bags, waterproof clothing and backpacks. His face too looks taut and tanned from years of exposure to the elements. And there’s not an inch of fat on the guy, all burnt off from hours of mad runs around the wilderness.

Paul knows I’m out of sorts, being back in Ireland after so many years camped out in Africa. And his sister Avril has already handed him specific instructions to look out for me, to help me settle back into Irish life once more. It’s with this sense of obligation that he makes polite conversation as we drive towards the race start.

There’s no let up in the drizzle as we drive towards Corrig. In fact, the closer we get to the mountain, the heavier the rain seems to fall. ‘Surely the race won’t go ahead in this weather,’ I silently think to myself, hoping and praying for a last minute cancellation. Great mountain running weather or what? Paul happily chirps up, secretly reading my mind. It seems that my reticence about this whole mountain running expedition is inversely proportional to Paul’s excitement about the conditions. All of a sudden I feel very soft, not hard and rugged like a proper mountain person is meant to be. I thought my years in Africa would have toughened me up, but I’m abruptly finding it quite the opposite.

Paul is not alone in his enthusiasm. Cars clutter the tiny country road leading to the base of Corrig Mountain, the start of tonight’s mountain race. With Dublin a mere thirty minutes’ drive away, runners have already arrived in their droves from their offices and homes, utterly undeterred by the prospect of running up a mountain on a cold, wet evening after work.

The race has been organised by the aptly named Irish Mountain Runners Association or IMRA, as it is known for short. The registration process is surprisingly fast and efficient despite our desolate mountain location. From the back of a car someone has conjured up tables and chairs, forms and pens, race numbers and pins, as well as a laptop and fully functioning printer. I line up, pay the race fee and membership and get myself a number. Within a few minutes I become IMRA’s newest member.

With the administrative side all sorted, I now get a chance to check out the type of people who turn up to such events. Without wanting to sound too desperate, I’m silently hoping that there’ll be some people here with new best friend potential. It’s a real mixed bunch that I see bounding up and down the hill. There are guys and girls, both young and old, all happily chatting to each other as they stretch out their arms and legs. There are kids as young as fourteen, pensioners over seventy and every possible age in between.

I am hoping that I won’t seem too out of place at the race. I am new to the mountains, but not to running. My plan is to blend in inconspicuously by wearing some appropriate athletic gear. Back home, I had hummed and hawed over what to wear. Eventually I opted for a running T-shirt, jumper, jacket on top and a pair of tights down below. It seemed a functional and comfortable composition designed to keep me warm and dry.

At the bottom of Corrig, my choice of clothing is just about holding out against the cold. However, in comparison with the others, I look positively over-dressed. The vast majority of runners are sporting shorts and singlets and seem immune to the dropping temperature. Though I am indeed desperate to blend in, I cannot forego any of my three layers of clothing. I’ve become too accustomed to Africa’s heat to suddenly warm to Ireland’s weather.

‘Well at least I’ve got good road running shoes,’ I think in consolation, looking proudly down at my clean pair of trainers. ‘Hopefully they’ll still think I’m some sort of athlete.’ My gaze passes furtively to their footwear and my stomach begins to turn. Their shoes look different to anything I’ve ever seen before. On the bottom they have knots and knobbles for holding fast in mud, none of the sleek flatness that is required for running on roads.

My disguise has completely and utterly failed.

But what makes me stand out like a sore thumb is my slightly pudgy physique. The majority here are wafer thin figures, floating gracefully up and down the hill as they effortlessly warm up before the race start. All of a sudden, in addition to feeling too soft, I now feel horrendously fat. It seems that the mountains have honed these people into finely tuned athletes with perfectly toned muscles and not a gram of excess flab. They have evolved into the perfect aerodynamic shape for flying up and down mountains, whilst my more rounded shape is only fit for pushing me up to the top and rolling me back down again.

So my shoes aren’t right, I have too many clothes and my body is comparatively verging on obese. The only way left to camouflage my rookie status is to mimic them and their warm-up routines. I cross the starting line and jog up the initial incline. Those around me are gliding up and down the hill still in mid-conversation. I, on the other hand, have lost the ability to speak and am stumbling more than gliding. I am so out of my depth and so out of their league. If I had my own car now, I would get into it and drive straight back home. But Paul has the keys and is nowhere in sight. There’s nothing for it but to stay.

By 7.30 pm around 150 people have gathered at the starting line. I huddle somewhere in the middle of the group, a bit unsure of what happens next. All around me the friendly banter continues as athletes wait for the start. The atmosphere is surprisingly informal and friendly. And I’m beginning to feel a little optimistic. Could this be the place where I form new friendships to replace those I left back in Africa?

A registration official now stands up on a dirt mound beside the raring-to-go runners. Alright lads, enjoy it. One, two, three, go. And with that uncomplicated countdown, the race begins.

The fastest runners at the front accelerate off at high speed. The pack follows closely behind, pursuing them up the gravel track leading up towards the mountainside. I find myself in the middle of this mêlée, struggling to match the pace. All of a sudden, I feel a looming sense of failure growling deep inside me.

‘Everyone’s going to pass you. You’re going to be last. You’re going to fail. Everyone’s going to laugh.’

I have no idea from where this ominous fear has surreptitiously sprung from. But just in case it’s deadly, I resolve to do everything I can to prove it wrong.

The track is already at an angle and I find myself running on my tippy toes. After a few hundred metres, I have established a rhythm and seem to be not losing any ground. ‘This is okay. This could be good. I can do this,’ I think to myself.

I take the opportunity to look up and see where we are headed. But instead of seeing a long line of runners straight ahead of me, the lead runners are nowhere to be found. The gravel track is empty. ‘Oh jaysus, where have they all gone?’ The last thing I want is to get lost. I look behind me and spot some runners directly on my shoulder. I resolve to slow and to stick to them like glue.

The track swings left, but my group goes right, over a dirt bank and straight towards some trees. There seems to be no way through the forest in front. All I can see is a jungle of low lying branches. But one after one, my group bends down and soon they disappear beneath the foliage. There’s nothing else for me to do but follow. I’m too afraid to be left behind on my own.

Beyond the branches, my fellow runners have now straightened up and are just ahead, having found a break through the forest. They are following a faint trail that goes straight up through the trees and higher up the mountainside. I follow their lead and together we run up and up and up. I find myself taking smaller and smaller steps as I try to keep my legs moving up this ever increasing incline. Whilst I’m busy adjusting my stride pattern, it becomes harder and harder to find steady footing on this new muddy path we’re running on. My shoes slip on the wet needles, grass and muck which constitutes this forest trail. The evening’s wet weather has mixed with the undergrowth to produce treacherous terrain. And what with 150 pairs of running shoes coursing up through this forest, the ground has been churned up so badly that it has been transformed into one big muddy slide.

And whilst the forest path disintegrates, my body soon follows suit. My maiden attempt at uphill running is swiftly taking its toll. Within seconds, my lungs catch fire. I can barely breathe. Just when I most needed a glut of oxygen, my breathing faculties have opted to initiate an emergency shut-down. And whilst my lungs are busy malfunctioning, my heart hits record speeds. I can feel it beating twice as fast as normal. Indeed a heart attack feels almost imminent.

Down below, my other body parts are also struggling. After less than a minute of intensive uphill running, my legs are ready to explode. Already I can feel the heat of detonation with every uphill stride. My thighs are ticking time bombs, straining under the load. I feel each ligament igniting and burning one by one.

I have been running up this mountain for less than five minutes and already I can’t bear it any more. I have covered less than five hundred metres, but running a single step more is simply a no.

I start to walk.

WALK?!! This is pathetic. I am meant to be running, not walking. I signed up for a running race, not one to find the fastest stroller.

But the walk is at least doing me some good. I have stopped hyperventilating, my legs have stopped squealing and I am slowly but surely making upward progress. I also take solace in the fact that others around me have also adopted a walking strategy. True, the lead runners ahead of us have scooted up through the forest with a bounding running stride. But we decide to leave those guys to it, as the rest of the pack and I content ourselves with a gentrified walk through the woods.

Just as I’m starting to enjoy this, I see a light at the end of the trees. Soon enough, the path peters out, the forest falls away and we emerge onto the open mountainside. Foolishly, I had thought that the little winding path up through the forest qualified as hardcore mountain running. Never before have I been further from the truth that I’m now on the verge of discovering.

Up here, all mountain hell is breaking loose. The wind is screeching. The rain is swirling. And whilst I’m busy absorbing this Irish Hades, my fellow mountain runners are disappearing further and further into the mist. I have to stick with them if I’m not to lose them and be lost forever on this ferocious, deserted mountain.

But keeping up with them is an entirely different matter. There are no well worn tracks or paths to follow. Instead, there are furrowed breaks through a knotted mesh of heather that totally submerges Corrig Mountain. These breaks expose bare bog lurking underneath the vegetation. And thanks to another Irish summer of unending precipitation, this bog has been transformed into a slippery swamp of gooey mud on which my feet find zero traction. The more I try to run forward, the more I slide off to the side. Desperately I bog skate my way towards the summit, cursing my sleek but rubbish road running shoes.

The ground is still heading upwards, but this time I can’t afford to adopt a leisurely walk. If I walk, the other runners will definitely get away. Many of them have already delved and disappeared into the mist less than fifty metres ahead. And herein lies my dilemma. If I look up to keep them in sight, I cannot also look down and check where my feet are going. A slight glance upwards and my feet end up stuttering and stammering over grass, rocks and rutted bog. And so I resign myself to looking straight ahead whilst tripping and lurching forwards, onwards and upwards in what I hope is the right direction.

By now the physical pain of uphill running has been subsumed into a greater, broader torture. The war is no longer just with my body, but with the weather, the terrain, the mountain and ultimately, my mind.

‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you give up and go home?’ I begin to hear my head questioning. ‘Paul is going to be so embarrassed by this performance. He’s going to wish he never brought you here. You’re such a disappointment.’ As if I don’t have enough to contend with already, my mind is now harassing me.

‘But if I just continue on a little longer, maybe it’ll get better,’ I answer, trying to convince myself. ‘Just finish the race. Giving up is worse than coming last. Come on Moire, you’ll be fine.’

After what seems like a never ending battle with a mind-without-mercy, towards a mountain without a top, I start to make out a stationary figure decked out in arctic gear. He is barely visible under his multitude of layers, as he tries to protect himself from the rain and wind that bounce off his waterproof pants and jacket. What anyone would be doing standing out here in these conditions is beyond comprehension.

But then I work out that he is standing to show us