This is great, I thought to myself. I wasn’t even being sarcastic. It must have been somewhere halfway through my third loop around Lough Currane. The weather was fairly wild but I was warm, comfortable and loving life. Even though time was getting a bit tight, I was confident I could still make the cut-off. I just wished the whole thing would last longer. Not everyone shared the same sentiment.

2024 was a great year. I finally logged fewer running miles than previous years because of injury, cycling and other unfortunate events. That may not sound ideal, but I think breaking the pattern of always running more was a good thing. In hindsight, that is. Anyone who tried to tell me this at the time was met with silence or worse.

2024 was also my first full year in a very long time where I settled in one place with the intent of staying there. I started using that four-letter word again that other people just throw around like it’s nothing. No, not that one. Home. I’d spent many a winter in Kerry over the years but I was always on the go, getting ready to leave again after a few months. Fleeing to Europe for the busy summer months mightn’t have been a bad idea still, but had I done that again I would’ve missed my first Irish wedding. And who would’ve thought this wedding would actually be an unofficial BMF crew meeting. Life is funny like that.

Crew is pretty important for BMF because (1) it’s mandatory and (2) you’re camping in a fairly exposed field in the middle of winter. Most of us are capable of managing our gear and feeding ourselves during a race, but having a few extra hands to help with tent related issues and staying warm in that tent can make life a lot easier. I was very grateful when Ed (from the wedding) offered to help me set things up on the Friday. The previous year I’d done all of that on my own and although it was doable, this saved me at least fifteen walks up and down the hill to the campsite. And to be honest, I couldn’t have done this year’s tent set-up on my own. Ed insisted on weighing down the tent which was a true test of patience for me. He did it anyway. We talked through a final few things before leaving camp. It would all make sense on the day and I wasn’t worried about the crewing side of things at all. Ed is no stranger to running, albeit the shorter tarmac version, and the other person in my crew would know a thing or two about long runs in suboptimal conditions.

After the usual sleepless night we got to Waterville with time to spare, the wind had picked up but the tent was fine because… well, yes, the weights were a good idea. Even though I was a ten second walk away from the corral, I was still pretty late showing up. I don’t know what it is with start lines, I just don’t like them and it seems like I’ll do anything to avoid them. I got there just in time to put my phone in the sealed bag and we all headed off on our first loop.

Loop 1. Clockwise. Trails.

My goal for the first loop was to just enjoy a bit of company. You usually get more than enough me-time later on in a race. I was happy we were going clockwise, because I’d been planning on doing a recce in that direction but those plans never materialised. We went up the ridge first and the trail was in surprisingly good condition. This was great, I was chatting away and… $*#&@)! My foot disappeared into a hole and I slammed my knee against a rock. Ok, that hurt. I heard a chorus of are you ok’s behind me and I replied with some cheery lie. Surely I could run it off. I ran with Tomas for a couple of hours which was good fun. There may have been some tales of a certain race in England that also tends to get some lovely weather each January. But alas, we all know what’s said on the trail stays on the trail.

Tomas was great company though I think we went our separate ways while climbing up Eagles Hill. We got some wind and sleet there and the ground was half frozen. The layer of sleet meant it was a bit hard to gauge where your feet were going to end up, but navigation was fine and I tried to pay attention so as to remember as much as possible for the loops in darkness. There wasn’t much to see though. One tree lower down was my main mental note. Aim for the tree. Simple.

Descending into Caherdaniel I could see Wayne in front of me, he was running faster than me but he took some detours to admire standing stones and other landmarks, so I ended up running some bits with him along the coast. It turned out this was his first time in Kerry, hence the touristy detours. My first loop was a bit faster than planned. Walking unnecessarily seemed pointless though, as I’d just be getting cold.

Finishing loop 1 in just under six hours meant I had loads of time to get ready for the next one and discuss glove tactics with the second half of my crew, Joe O’Leary, who’d brought the tunes also. The forecast looked like the weather would keep deteriorating overnight, so we decided I’d use my ‘good enough’ layers for loop 2 and save my ‘really good’ stuff for loop 3. I could then let that dry and swap gear for loop 4, and so on. I gave Joe a heart attack by showing up with seconds to spare for loop 2 as I had to queue for the toilet. You’d think it’s not that hard to plan for these things but I might be losing my punctuality a bit.

Loop 2. Clockwise. Streams.

The coin toss decided we’d be going clockwise again for loop 2, which is probably the best direction in wet weather. You’re going up the steepest bits and the descents are more gradual this way, meaning you can make up some time instead of being slow on both the ups and the downs. I ran with Tomas again for a while who taught me a few things about Gaeilge. In my optimism I thought we’d get the ridge done before losing daylight, because that’s what we did last year. The sky wasn’t exactly cloudless though and darkness fell quickly. The terrain was getting worse by the second with the amount of rain that we were getting. Run the runnable and slog the rest, that was going to be my very scientific approach as per usual.

I bumped into Sam who was in good spirits and we picked up Jenny along the way also. Navigating up Eagles proved a bit of a challenge with the wet and the snow, but as we got higher we could follow the footsteps of the guys in front of us while keeping an eye on the GPS. It wasn’t easy to get grip on the snow-covered ice, but we were making good progress going up. Descending Eagles at a decent pace was a great way to warm the feet before traversing the flooded trails near Derrynane. I kept slipping on the climb going up to Coomakista and was hoping for loop 3 to be another clockwise loop. Descending both Coomakista and Eagles on the steep side wouldn’t be much fun.

The wind at the top of Coomakista tried to knock us both over, but Sam and I had a good final push into town motivated by the thought of some hot food. We finished loop 2 in under seven hours and were expecting a warm welcome at the finish line, only my crew was nowhere to be seen. I trusted they were at the tent and so they were, in fact trying to hold it down. A few tents had suffered a worse fate. Mine was ok, it was just a bit wet inside. There were chips and pizza waiting for me and I got a good amount of food in. It was now time to start discussing loop 4 with Joe and Ed. I knew it was going to be tight to finish loop 3 within the cut-off, so I figured it’d be good to have a plan in place. That plan was pretty simple: skip all the unnecessary stuff and just head out again as quickly as possible, same as in any normal race. The crew stops were now being called ‘service’ anyway, that’s the price you pay for putting two people with a rallying background together.

I think the stopping is one the hardest parts about BMF. Moving through the wind and the wet is fine, but once you stop and listen to the weather from inside a tent it all seems much more intimidating. Staying warm can also be a bit of a challenge once you’re sitting down. I showed up at the start of the next loop with untied shoe laces but at least I was there in time. Apparently once I start procrastinating for no reason it takes more than two people to get me to do something. The more time you have, the more time you waste.

Loop 3. Anti-clockwise. Rivers.

The start of loop 3 was a bit chaotic because I was getting cold quickly in the howling wind. Joe and Ed were trying to shelter me from the wind and as it was dark, I couldn’t really see who else had showed up for the start of this loop. I assumed a few others would be there anyway. The coin was flipped to decide which direction we’d be going and we got anti-clockwise. Not ideal but you can’t be lucky all the time. I passed the start line just so I’d officially have started loop 3 and then I stopped to tie my shoes. I could hear Joe tell the others to just leave, it must’ve seemed like I’d never get myself sorted. I was a bit confused because no runners passed me so I asked race director Simon what was going on. ‘They’ve pulled out, it’s just you.’

Oh.

That wasn’t what I’d anticipated or hoped for. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but that didn’t really matter anyway. It was about time I got a move on, finishing that third loop within the eight hour cut-off would be hard enough. I was kind of glad that I’d been slow to start loop 3 or otherwise I might’ve been oblivious. At least the task was pretty clear now.

Even the roads leading up to Coomakista were flooded now and the headwind was relentless which slowed things down even more, but I just focused on being as efficient as possible and the time would be what it would be. I was nice and warm, eating well and it felt good being out there. The only goal for now was to get over Coomakista and Eagles safely, after that I’d start checking the watch. No need to rush the dodgy bits. Most trails had turned into rivers now and descending Eagles was interesting, but I didn’t get too lost. It was only when I was nearly at the bottom that I noticed the tree that I’d been planning to aim for. Very helpful.

Once I reached the lake road I did the maths and realised I needed to do 6 km/h to get to the finish line in time. 10:00 min/km sounds like a very manageable pace but I knew there’d probably be some slower kilometres there as well which meant running at a fairly decent pace for the other parts. That was fine, I wasn’t doing much running in these conditions so I was happy to speed up on the road sections. Hiking up through the forestry I could feel my eyes were no longer doing what they were supposed to do though, probably because I’d been staring at horizontal rain and sleet in torch light all night. I had plenty of energy but I just couldn’t look in front of me anymore. My eyes started to close. This was way too early and shouldn’t be happening in the first night, so I ignored it at first and hoped it would pass. It didn’t. My eyes kept asking for a break, but it wasn’t great weather for a lie-down. The best I could do was find a gate to lean against, set the timer on my watch for 30 seconds and close my eyes.

Heaven.

After what felt like at least an hour, my watch started beeping and vibrating and I felt reborn. The eyes were good again and I could see clearly although it was still pitch dark. For the remainder of the loop I was just on a mission to make the cut-off. I reached the ridge with less of a cushion than I would’ve liked, but I was banking on a fast final 3 km into town so I could still make up time there. The ground on the ridge had turned into it’s usual liquid form again and the rocks were slippy. I had a few good falls but at least I avoided that hole from loop 1.

No matter how often you run this section, it’s always longer than you think and I couldn’t believe the amount of stiles I had to climb over. Once I was finally on the last descent onto the road, I knew I had enough time. Since I’d been so focused on watching the minutes tick away though, I just started running like it was a local road race. I reached the finish line with 6 minutes to spare. Plenty of time, although I hear some dot watchers found the whole thing rather stressful. At least one of my crew believed I’d make it so that’s both a relief and kind of disappointing.

After finishing, the guys seemed pretty eager to get home but I didn’t protest as they’d gone above and beyond all weekend. They’d already packed up the tent in the middle of the night and were kind enough to convince me to take a hot shower straight away. It was snowing a bit in town but I didn’t think much of it. On the way home we got more and more snow, to the point where people were getting stranded. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like to run in that much snow, it looked pretty cool but I didn’t say that out loud because I’d probably get some looks. After I got dropped home I realised the power was out and I couldn’t go anywhere. Even the pub was closed, would you believe it. I suppose it all made for some great recovery as I had no reception either so all I could do was just go to bed. We could celebrate later.

Massive thanks to Joe and Ed for their… service? And for staying up all night to keep an eye on the tracker (I did not stop for an actual sleep). Thanks to Carol F and Simon M for letting me borrow their tents, to Stephen, Gill, Jean and Richie for jumping in where needed and to Simon K and family/helpers for making it all happen.

Kerry’s not a bad spot. And the people are ok, I guess. I might stay here a while.