Race To Kinvara: A Relay Race Through Ireland

When life hands you a four leaf clover, hold on to that bad boy for dear life!! Especially if it happens to be on some of your favorite running gear {aka the Saucony Kinvara}.

I’ve literally been running in this shoe since it was released and their now up to like version 10.

I certainly felt like a little luck of the Irish had come my way, when I was given the opportunity to join Saucony for a special event they created called the Race to Kinvara.

What is this race??

How do people get selected?

Running specialty stores aren’t just a place for us to geek out with other runners, they are really the lifeblood of the running industry. Ensuring that we all get the gear that will help us perform well and enjoy running.

Saucony rewards the amazing people who show up every day in those stores to service our gnarly, sweaty, runner’s feet…so they thought BIG…really BIG.

Associates are able to enter a raffle based on number of shoes sold. While of course Saucony loves their shoes they were also very adamant it’s about getting people in the right shoe which may not always be one of theirs.

As you might notice this is not normally a blogger event, Jess and I were extremely honored and blessed to have been selected {randomly} from the 26Strong coaches.

I love that they stitched their motto in to our hoodies: Empowering the human spirit through running.

Ireland Stage Race Overview

Have you ever done a Ragnar or relay race? Been holed up in a stinky van with 6 people for 32 hours?

Now imagine flying first class…yup it was that different. Each of the 10 teams had a driver and a large Mercedes bus and to make you feel really special and a motor cycle driver riding nearby to protect you from cars.

Below one of the team buses…of course we decorated them!! And a snapshot that my moto driver took while tailing me along the water. Unlike a Ragnar which is run straight through the night, a stage race is done over multiple days.

This allows you to finish in the afternoon, shower, enjoy a little of the city, dine with your team and sleep in a bed!

Teams were comprised of associates from the US, Canada, Germany, France, UK and Ireland.

We were proud to be the first US team finishing just 9 minutes behind the UK/Ireland team and we won’t get in to how far behind the French and Germans who were seriously there to win.

That being said it was really more about fun that winning…but 80 runners together is going to breed some competitive thinking, right?!

Relay Day 1

We left Dublin and kicked off the race next to the beautiful Blessington Lake. Setting the scene already that we would be enjoying the countryside and small towns for the next two days of running. This part of Wicklow has appeared in many Hollywood films from “Captain Boycott” in 1947 to Excalibur 1981, Braveheart, it provides stunning views of the Wicklow mountains and the water.I was really hoping to run a lot of miles like I did with the Palmetto 200 because that’s how I wanted to see the country. Fortunately for me fate intervened and we drew names for most legs so I ended up with just 5.6 miles on day 1…saving my increasingly swollen knee from more injury.

I had no sharp or intense pain with my knee, just an ache and swelling so I made the decision that running was absolutely worth it and stand by that choice now too!!

One of our first hand-offs came in a little town called Hollywood…where some local sheep farmers had put up a sign in the hills!! Beautiful white stone walls lined the streets, and we likely saw more sheep than people live in the town (around 100). My leg was the first time we moved off road and I found myself along the River Barrow in solitude, until I’d pass a local fishing or swimming…and then of course the fleeting moments were a girl running 6 min miles zipped past me.

This is the longest river in Ireland and I was impressed to find such a great path alongside of it. From dirt to pavement, it continued to be our path for many miles to come providing a lot of beautiful scenery. We finished day 1 at a pub in Kilkenny where most teams recovered with some local brew and a well earned massage!

Kilkenny is well known for it’s beautiful castles, which were were lucky enough to not only tour, but enjoy a great dinner inside one of the castles while being serenaded by bag pipes.

Day 2 Relay

Rising early for another breakfast of smoked salmon and Belgian waffles, we headed out for a 2 hour drive to the start line of day two…it was through some beautiful countryside and lead to one of the most amazing start lines I’ve seen in 12 years of running.

Epic – that word gets thrown around a lot these days, but seriously one look at the start line and I think you’d agree. 10 guys took off single file on a small path three feet from the Cliffs of Moher on the Burren Way walking trail, which happened to also be crowded near the start with other tourists.
From there we continued running through tiny towns, past cows and sheep, around Galway Bay and with views that were never endingly green and locals who were definitely curious about this sweaty caravan. It’s not often apparently that a big bus full of stinky sweaty people pull up to a town of less than 300 hundred and pull out cameras, while also shouting and screaming at passing runners.

Finally we reached Kinvara, where each team ran as a unit across the finish line and then promptly began to celebrate with another massage, drinks and food, while cheering on others!

After that was a night of fun with an awards dinner, Celtic dancers and just enjoying the new friends that we had made over the last three days. Certainly not an adventure that I will forget anytime soon and one that I still feel a bit in awe of having been blessed with the opportunity to do.

Have you ever done a Stage Relay?

What’s the coolest place you’ve run?

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