Gosh, it's been a while since I've written one of these things. So where have I been then? Well, most recently I've been running around Ireland. Not the whole country, mind, but enough of it to get a good feel of the place.
The occasion of the trip was a big family gathering to trace my great grandmother's roots back to a tiny little town in County Leitrim, all the way up in the northwest corner of the country. There were ten of us, so it became a bit like herding cats at times, but we managed to get through it all with tempers relatively intact.
Our trip started out with a package tour out of Dublin, and I took the bold/foolish initiative of running around Dublin on the morning after my first night in the city when my ability to sleep failed me after ten hours. Dublin was by far the most urban of the places we visited, so I had to keep an eye out for traffic, and I still hadn't yet gotten the hang of looking for it coming from the reverse of the directions I'm used to. I kept to running around the perimeters of parks as much as I could to avoid that. Parks also had the advantage of being rectangular, which I soon discovered the value of when I had to veer off of them down the city's winding streets, and I ended up doubling back over a mile out of my way. I eventually found my bearings and managed to get back to the hotel somehow.
Our next stop was Cork, which was slightly smaller and split up among a number of islands. Our hotel was actually on an island so small that you had to cross its sole bridge to another island in order to really get anywhere. There were some lovely parks there as well, and one bridge I crossed immediately took me up and up and up a hill, until I was looking down on the entire city (while also keeping an eye out for cars on a narrow road that was flanked by walls where you'd normally expect to find sidewalks). I got lost a bit again on my way back, but not as badly this time.
After that we headed up to Killarney, which had the biggest park of them all. Mists were still on the lake as I ran past lounging herds of cows and elk in the early morning. The presence of large animals and the state of my jet lag-addled brain brought the experience to an almost surreal level.
Fourth up was Limerick. Or at least that's what the destination was called. I never saw Limerick, or anything else that would show up on a political map with any degree of detail. Our hotel was a Radisson in the middle of farm country, which happened to have the cocktail reception of a wedding going on in its lobby as I headed out in my exercise clothes, feeling so out of place that I actually started to be a little proud of it. The run consisted of me running up a road for two miles without hitting an intersection, then running back for two miles along the very same road. There weren't any sidewalks or shoulders, and the bushes grew high on either side of the road, so I had to rely heavily on drivers' ability to see me as they came around a bend before splattering me onto the pavement.
Limerick was the last stop on the tour proper, so from there we piled into rental cars at Shannon Airport and headed north to Strandhill in County Sligo---the nearest place to my great grandmother's hometown that had sizable accommodations. Right after we checked into the hotel I had my most beautiful run yet---nothing but picturesque countryside set between the mountains and the sea. There was even a bike lane, which gave me some breathing room from the cars. At one point I hit a fork that gave me the choice of running back on the side of the mountain I'd come from or circumnavigating it, and I regret that I didn't quite have time to take the longer route.
The last destination had what would prove to be the most challenging run of all: Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. We stayed at a hotel that was literally right next door to the Causeway, known for its unique seaside rock formations that resembled five- and six-sided crystals. We all had fun hopping around them after our tour. When I asked about hours for the Causeway at the front desk, I learned that the waterfront and the trails around it were always open, and that what we'd payed admission for was essentially just access to the Visitor's Center. That's when I hatched my scheme to run as much of the shorefront as I could the next morning.
From what I was able to learn about the waterfront, there was no way that I was going to go all the way along it. The full system of trails extended for 33 miles, which is far beyond the limits of even my insanity. I ended up going only about eight and a half miles, but within that space I went from beaches to dizzying five-hundred-foot-tall cliffs, past railroad tracks and around golf course, and up and down dramatic undulations so steep that I had to slow to a walk even when going downhill in some places. The mist turned to drizzle, until I wasn't sure how much of the water soaking me was rain and how much of it was sweat. I finally stopped and turned around when I came across a pack of rams that was drinking from a pool at the edge of one of the cliffs. They'd somehow managed to get beyond the fence that separated the trail from the farmland beyond (though I should note here that there wasn't any similar barrier between the trail and the sheer drop a few feet away from it). The rams started to trot away when I saw them, and rather than follow in pursuit I decided that my madness had driven me far enough, so I ran back to the the hotel.
The runs were only a small part of the vacation, and I have an avalanche of memories from it that I'm still frantically trying to copy all down into a journal. Seeing as how I've already passed a thousand words here though, I think I'd better wrap this entry up and save the rest for another time.
The occasion of the trip was a big family gathering to trace my great grandmother's roots back to a tiny little town in County Leitrim, all the way up in the northwest corner of the country. There were ten of us, so it became a bit like herding cats at times, but we managed to get through it all with tempers relatively intact.
Our trip started out with a package tour out of Dublin, and I took the bold/foolish initiative of running around Dublin on the morning after my first night in the city when my ability to sleep failed me after ten hours. Dublin was by far the most urban of the places we visited, so I had to keep an eye out for traffic, and I still hadn't yet gotten the hang of looking for it coming from the reverse of the directions I'm used to. I kept to running around the perimeters of parks as much as I could to avoid that. Parks also had the advantage of being rectangular, which I soon discovered the value of when I had to veer off of them down the city's winding streets, and I ended up doubling back over a mile out of my way. I eventually found my bearings and managed to get back to the hotel somehow.
Our next stop was Cork, which was slightly smaller and split up among a number of islands. Our hotel was actually on an island so small that you had to cross its sole bridge to another island in order to really get anywhere. There were some lovely parks there as well, and one bridge I crossed immediately took me up and up and up a hill, until I was looking down on the entire city (while also keeping an eye out for cars on a narrow road that was flanked by walls where you'd normally expect to find sidewalks). I got lost a bit again on my way back, but not as badly this time.
After that we headed up to Killarney, which had the biggest park of them all. Mists were still on the lake as I ran past lounging herds of cows and elk in the early morning. The presence of large animals and the state of my jet lag-addled brain brought the experience to an almost surreal level.
Fourth up was Limerick. Or at least that's what the destination was called. I never saw Limerick, or anything else that would show up on a political map with any degree of detail. Our hotel was a Radisson in the middle of farm country, which happened to have the cocktail reception of a wedding going on in its lobby as I headed out in my exercise clothes, feeling so out of place that I actually started to be a little proud of it. The run consisted of me running up a road for two miles without hitting an intersection, then running back for two miles along the very same road. There weren't any sidewalks or shoulders, and the bushes grew high on either side of the road, so I had to rely heavily on drivers' ability to see me as they came around a bend before splattering me onto the pavement.
Limerick was the last stop on the tour proper, so from there we piled into rental cars at Shannon Airport and headed north to Strandhill in County Sligo---the nearest place to my great grandmother's hometown that had sizable accommodations. Right after we checked into the hotel I had my most beautiful run yet---nothing but picturesque countryside set between the mountains and the sea. There was even a bike lane, which gave me some breathing room from the cars. At one point I hit a fork that gave me the choice of running back on the side of the mountain I'd come from or circumnavigating it, and I regret that I didn't quite have time to take the longer route.
The last destination had what would prove to be the most challenging run of all: Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. We stayed at a hotel that was literally right next door to the Causeway, known for its unique seaside rock formations that resembled five- and six-sided crystals. We all had fun hopping around them after our tour. When I asked about hours for the Causeway at the front desk, I learned that the waterfront and the trails around it were always open, and that what we'd payed admission for was essentially just access to the Visitor's Center. That's when I hatched my scheme to run as much of the shorefront as I could the next morning.
From what I was able to learn about the waterfront, there was no way that I was going to go all the way along it. The full system of trails extended for 33 miles, which is far beyond the limits of even my insanity. I ended up going only about eight and a half miles, but within that space I went from beaches to dizzying five-hundred-foot-tall cliffs, past railroad tracks and around golf course, and up and down dramatic undulations so steep that I had to slow to a walk even when going downhill in some places. The mist turned to drizzle, until I wasn't sure how much of the water soaking me was rain and how much of it was sweat. I finally stopped and turned around when I came across a pack of rams that was drinking from a pool at the edge of one of the cliffs. They'd somehow managed to get beyond the fence that separated the trail from the farmland beyond (though I should note here that there wasn't any similar barrier between the trail and the sheer drop a few feet away from it). The rams started to trot away when I saw them, and rather than follow in pursuit I decided that my madness had driven me far enough, so I ran back to the the hotel.
The runs were only a small part of the vacation, and I have an avalanche of memories from it that I'm still frantically trying to copy all down into a journal. Seeing as how I've already passed a thousand words here though, I think I'd better wrap this entry up and save the rest for another time.
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