Glendalough trail

This weekend I took my first trip outside of County Dublin, and got to see some of the famous Irish sheep!

See those little white dots, those are sheep!!!!

They take their sheep very seriously!!

I swear this is a sheep right near the road, but she refused to look up from eating.

We didn’t go too far, only to Glendalough which is about an hour’s drive away, but I found out that is far enough to see a whole new world.  Since we live kind of on the edge of the suburbs and the mountains, it doesn’t take long.  Not only did I see a lot of new vegetation, but I found out that it is far enough to have a completely different weather system.   According to the race photographer, Glendalough has crazy weather due to the surrounding mountains.  This explains why I left home thinking it was a beautiful day for a hike, but was soaking wet by the time we were finished.  Oh well, great day anyway. 

Views like this made it look like a totally different climate from the lush green I am used to seeing.

And not far from it were streams and waterfalls.

We participated in a fundraising event for the group Fighting Blindness, and you could either do a 15.5K trail run or the 10K walk.  We chose the 10K walk (6.2 miles), and even that was being optimistic.  Two weekends ago we ended up walking 10K, but that was not all in one shot, was flat, and we were still pooped afterward.  But that’s okay, we could do this, right???  After we signed we got an email saying it was actually 10.8K, plus a little walk to the start line, and oh by the way, it is pretty challenging. We tracked it with apps on our phones, and it ended up being a bit longer than even the 10.8K, plus the little walk to the start line ended up being 1.4 miles each way, so in the end, we ended up going about 9.7 miles, which is 54% longer than the originally advertised 10K (6.2 miles). It was definitely a challenge for us, especially since there were some very steep inclines, and a lot of uphill overall.  The start line was at an elevation of 448 feet, and at the highest point we were at 1,096 feet, and there were lots of ups and downs along the way.

   

This is what the tower looked like from the start line.

This is what the start line looked like from the trail, and this wasn't even the highest point.

Although we both made it, we both struggled at some point, and were totally pooped afterward.  Hubby was having a hard time at the beginning, especially because his feet kept going numb!  We stopped many times to adjust shoe laces, take water breaks, and drink some energy goo.  I was doing fine but we wanted to stick together.  Plus these breaks gave me a chance to take a few pictures.

These are from the first half, when I had all the energy:

(and yes, I was too cheap to by the photos, so these still have the watermarks)

 

We tried to jog some of the downhill portions to make up for the time we lost taking those breaks, but one of the hills tweaked my knees.  At that point, Hubby had his second wind and his feet were finally back to normal, but I was hurting.  Then Hubby wanted to run ahead but stayed with me anyways, and he did do a bit of dragging as we jogged across the finish line.

On the walk back to the car it was pouring down rain, but we didn’t mind too much because it was cooling us down, and because we had dry clothes waiting for us in the car.  Plus, we got to see more sheep and this deer right by the side of the road!!!!!

The phone camera isn’t great, we didn’t have a lot of chances to stop and take pics, and the weather started to turn bad, but I wanted to share more views with you anyway.  You can see better pics on the official website.  

This is yet another place that I said to myself, when people come to visit, I have to take them here!  Of course, this one will be limited to the really fit people, and we will probably take our time and picnic and whatnot next time, but it is just an amazing place to see!  Hope you get to come see it soon. :)