You couldn’t make this up. I was tipping away with a nice steady increase in my running volume since the start of the year, perhaps 10-20% more than I’d started with last year. All well und then one of those “are you joking me?!” injuries… It was mid-January I’d been in to do some squats - medium difficulty for me when running so perhaps 50% of my limit. There was bench left behind the squat rack and as I was conscious of tripping over it, I finished my squats, turned around and pushed without lifting up the bench onto its wheels. Unfortunately with the fatigue in my legs and the leverage position, I pulled either my hamstring or the tendon at the top of it. Serious pain and since then I’ve been managing a this constant dull ache and niggle. It’s a weird one in the sense that I could keep running on it, however, I was also very aware when pushing it, that it could really blow up….. Which lead to some serious decision making - would I do the Raheny 5-miler (8km) running event that had sent me a reminder email to tell me I had a ticket (ha - seems I bought it last November and promptly forgot!), or skip it to avoid the risk… We all know the answer here.

Raheny 5-mile (8km)

And so, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, I was on the electric bike cycling across to Raheny, all 13km into a solid headwind to both catch up with a friend and give my first ever' ‘short distance’ (yes, it’s not that short…) event a lash. Dropping the bike off, myself and Andy had a short 1km jog down to the registration desk, a painful queue for the toilets, a mad dash to the start line (getting close to the front as there was THOUSANDS of people taking part) and then go go go! I.e. no proper warm-up with strides, etc for what was going to be a fast run for me. With my sketchy hamstring. Sigh…. Anyway, what I can I say only that it wall went surprisingly well on the day!

It ended up being a 31 minute time which clocks in at 3:51min/km and what can definitely be said to be a personal best. I also ran my PB for the 5km time which just shows how little I’ve done at these distances. The heart rate averaged 165 also which implies there was a bit more in the tank also…..

Then, a nice social coffee, back on the bike and home.

All while carrying what was now a slightly louder groaning hamstring. Oh oh…

However, it was a real positive and I came away with a positive feeling for what was to come, even if I was looking at having to manage out a truly odd niggle….

The rest of January came and went and I managed to maintain a solid 70km/week (good average for me) before realising that with two weeks to go to Donadea, perhaps some physio was required. A trip to the excellent Musa at Pearse Street physio came with the feedback that was likely wasn’t the tendon (a good thing as that’s a messy long-term recuperation) and somewhere in the bed of the muscle. However, over the next two weeks, I still wasn’t getting in long runs and I realised as I fast approached the start of the Donadea 50km, I hadn’t run more than 24km in a single training run since early December. Gulp. Either way, I was doing it but it was going to be a real unknown on the day - would I blow up quickly? would the hamstring hold? Should I commit to just coasting so that I can guarantee the finish, or go out hard? Or go somewhere in the middle?

Donadea 50km

Which brings me to the Donadea 50km. Considering last year, I’d had to bail out due to an achilles issue, there was no way I wasn’t finishing it this year - that was a given. However, I was didn’t want to just cruise it - I hadn’t run longer than 2 hours and thought I’d get very very bored if I’d had to stay on my feet for 5 or more hours ;) So, the idea was formed - try go out at the top end of my Zone 2 according to the watch (that’s 130-150bpm) and see how long I could hold on. My previous goal had been to go out at 150-158bpm (zone 3 and in theory my marathon pace). That seemed risky with both a) my lack of distance, and b) that problematic hamstring.

The warm-up was….not great. Hamstring was tight, didn’t want to settle and it felt like I was dragging it. However, I had also come armed with a full tube of Voltarol (topical anti-inflammatory) so layered up the legs and decided I was going to suck it up either way.

How did it go? Again, surprisingly well! I had a good dialled in nutrition plan I was keen to test which involved one 500ml bladder with 1-1.5 scoops of Tailwind (so 25-35g carb) and a single SIS Beta Fuel (40g carb) or Precision Hydration caffeine gel (30g carbs) per hour and I managed to maintain that pretty well throughout the whole course with it only slightly falling down around 2.25 - 3 hours but then working well near the end. However, that 45 minute gap of a lack in energy really paid a price on my legs when they really tightened up in the final 10-12km and it felt like they went flat. This wasn’t just a lack of fuel either - I was well north of the distance I’d been covering in recent months so muscular endurance failure kicked in. I can only say I was working hard for those final two laps of 5km each and there was zero pop in the legs when I tried to push the last kilometre.

However, still a 3:56:05 finishing time left me with a very satisfactory outcome and 4:40min/km pace throughout. My watch had predicted a 3:25-3:30min/km pace for the event so I really wasn’t far off that considering the lack of big distance….. Also Nike Vaporfly 4’s work on flat trail events, who knew!

What’s next

So, where does that leave me? I’ve got 9 weeks to go to the next event, the Altar 100km in Avondale Forest Park in late April. There’s also a 2-week holiday in France early in April which will make it interesting to arrange long runs but that’s part of the game! I’m also excited as Naomi will be taking part in her first 50km even on the same looped course. Yes, it’s another looped course only this time, each loop is 3.2km long. 100km of this is sounding like misery so I’m currently debating if I’ll drop it back to the 50km and try beat the Donadea time….. If I do go for the 100km, I’m aiming for - at least - going under 10 hours however, and ideally 9 hours (so that works out as 2 50km events at 4.5 hours). I have a crazy idea to go out really hard at marathon pace and set a PB in the 50km, and then just coast the rest. What do you think? My feeling is if I can run this in a pair of carbon road shoes, and also get my fueling really dialled in (which means probably increasing from 65g/hour to 80-90g/hour also) I could have a very good day….

I’ve got patellar tendonitis. It’s mild, but it’s there. Blame all the speed work I’ve been doing since March. It paid off as I got to point of running a 1:25:00 half marathon (possibly quicker). However, at the same time, I’d a house build project kicking off and physically - and mentally - I was under serious load. So, I turned up for the goal half marathon run and knew straight away - I needed to rest. So, 10km in, I pulled off the course.

A small snippet in me burns with the what-if - would I have kept the pace I was at for another 11km?! (yes, I know I could have). But would I have enjoyed it? And made myself more injured? A no and a yes to both of those questions.

I’m in the phase now where we’ve this project ongoing, and I’m busy spending the rest of the time with work and family.

My knee can take its time to recover, and I’ll get fired up for the next event in September. There’s loads of time for more fun and adventures in the future!

Right now, I’ll just enjoy the downtime watching my kid continue her journey in starting to rock climb…

Below is the pre-race plan I’m looking to use. I’ll update this post after with what the outcome was. I’m reducing carb quantity a small amount to account for the fact that I’ll hopefully be finished in 90 minutes)

• 05:00 - 05:30 Eat Breakfast

  • Bagel with honey and banana

  • 500ml with Maurten 320 drink mix

• 06:10 - 06:30 Consume BiCarb (BiCarb effect/window will then be from 08:00 - 12:30, more than covering the half marathon)

• 07:00 - 07:45 Bag Drop

• 07:45 Walk to start line (15 minutes)

• 08:10 Last pre-racenutrition

  • 2 x Panadal Extra (1g paracetamol and 130mg of caffeine for the two tablets). I’eve never done this before but quite intrigued with this for other events (if genuinely needed to be taken and very very carefully!).

  • 2 x Precision Hydration caffeine gel (60g carb and 200mg of caffeine for the two gels)

• 08:30 Start Wave 1

  • Nutrition - maximum of 100g of carbs over the event

    • 1 SIS Beta Fuel gel (40g carb)

    • 1 x 30g caffeine (30g carb, 100mg caffeine))

    • 500ml bottle with Tailwind (30g)

• 10:00 Finish (target time of 90 minutes for completion at 4:15-4:16minutes/kilometer)

Gear List

• Nike Zoom Fly 6

• 26.2 zip tights

• Nike singlet

To get me to the line, did involve shaving my leg and some physio strapping but it seems to have made the difference. Good on Musa at Pearse Street Physiotherapy for working on me with dry needling, massage and patching me up with tape.

On the day, the amusing hiccup was the night before. I arrived out in my camper to stay to realise I’d forgotten a bagel for the morning, as well as realising there was no water in the camper! Thankfully Donadea is close to a few towns so sorted it easily.

On the morning, it was easy to arrive on time, drop off my gels/liquid to the tables to pick up each lap, register and get ready. I did modify my table to put everything into a box with a bright fluorescent yellow bag around it to stand out and also left my running jacket in it in case I needed a layer.

I did a 2km warm-up slow one hour beforehand.

The first lap felt slow to be honest. But the calf felt good! And it was all going well until - bang - 9km in and I felt it tighten up. I’d made the plan the night before that if (when) it started to groan I’d do another lap. As I was almost at the end of one lap on 9km, I decided I’d finished out the third. What was a pleasant surprise was the calf didn’t start to get any worse like usual, and as I've bumped into a fun group of runners (hi, Dan, Dave and Niamh!), they helped me to distract myself from it and we just kept running and chatting. Dave dropped out at 30km (no running and a 50-month old child will do that) and on that 6th lap, I needed a pee stop. I really need to figure out my liquids so they don’t happen in a four hour event/race :) I lost the other two and on that lap I slowly tried to coax my way up to Dan/Niamh - but carefully, only adding perhaps 2-3sceond/km in pace. All was going well and I continued my average pace at 4:50min/km. Then, around 35km the pain of running started to kick in. And with that, the load the calf was under kicked in and it started to scream. Which meant I knew I was bailing at the end. I was NOT walking out the final 10km and I also wasn’t interested in running in a lot of really really bad pain and really wrecking the calf. I knew if I pulled up now, it was no worse than before, recovery wouldn’t really be hampered and I still got 40km in! And with that I was done. A success overall: 4:53min/km average for the day.

What was really interesting was the final 5km. I tried to lean into my pace to pick it up as I knew I would be finishing up. Nothing happened - the legs were dea. that implies to me that I need to do some work in getting my level up here….

Notes on the day

Kit

• Runners: North Face Vectiv Pro 2 trail carbon super shoes. Ideal for the conditions on the day with a good amount of tread and the carbon assistance. I was in awe of anyone running it in road supershoes as it was very muddy in sections.

• Socks: CompressSport Run v4 socks

• Shorts; Decathlon trainers

• Underwear: Nike DriFit Pro

• singlet: Nike running singlet

• CompressSport wrist sweatband

• Watch: Coros Pace 3 with the Coros heart-rate armband

• Bottles: Decathlon 500ml bottles. They’re a pain to fill due to the narrow opening, however, they’re great to run with as short and stubby. . I’d to do one section with a Salomon 500ml which wasn’t helpful as they’re long and awkward.

Food Plan

Overall, this was a great success and I stuck to what I’ve been building up in documentation here. I’m going to bundle in everything here from the night before to what I had during the event:

• Night before:

  • Pasta with olive oil and a fake meat protein burger

• Morning (3 hours in advance):

  • Bagel with honey and banana

  • 500ml with Maurten 320 drink mix

• 1 hour 30-40 min before (following Maurten guidelines):

  • Maurten Bicarb. My third time to take this and my first in an event. Honestly, I don’t think I really need it just yet as still only learning how to lean into hard pacing at high heart rates, however, I’d like to start learning it now. There’s something to it…. Good to know no side effects either while in ‘race' mode.

• 45 minutes before:

  • 2 x Panadal Extra (1g paracetamol and 130mg of caffeine for the two tablets). I’eve never done this before but quite intrigued with this for other events (if genuinely needed to be taken and very very carefully!).

  • 2 x Precision Hydration caffeine gel (360g carb and 200mg of caffeine for the two gels)

• During race:

  • The target was a lap of 22 minute 30 seconds to 25 minutes per lap so I approached with 70-100g of carb per hour. So, the target was one 40g gel per lap (in this case, SIS Beta Fuel - this is amazing how easily it goes down), and then on the 90 minute mark to take another Precision Hydration caffeine gel. What happened was 3 out of every four laps, I had a gel but I did take the caffeine gel at the target time. That worked out as 6 50g gels and one 30g gel in the 3 hours 15 minutes I was running.

  • For liquid, I targeted one 500ml bottle eery hour with a Precision Hydration 1000 electrolyte tablet. This was mostly ideal although it was more like 400ml/hour I suspect partly due to it being 2-5 degrees in temperature. This part felt perfect.

What would I change? the only difference would be to force down that gel for every single lap, and also to add another caffeine gel. I felt mentally fatigued from a long few weeks of work/life and noticed a spike after taking the gel at 90 minutes. I should learn from it and have taken another at either the same time, or else at the start of the next lap.

I’ll have more to write, including adding some more ‘fun’ and stories but for now, this is the pure practical info….

I needed a project. I was going through the routine with climbing however it was all at indoor gyms (not a bad thing, however, as someone who used to travel so much for the sport, the repetitiveness was wearing off) and needed something new. And I thought back to my ultra running adventures in 2017-2019, as well as the time limitations I now have with a young child. The conclusion was to see whether I could. make it work to make the start line of an event in 2024….

Of course, since 2019, I’d picked up a busy new tech job, Covid had happened and most excitedly, a mini-human had entered my life! So…I had barely run in the intervening three years! By ‘barely’, I mean I’d ran less than 50km annually. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

So…mid-2023 came around and for whatever reason, running came as the idea for a project…to go and try and do an ultra. Firstly, tick 100km as the arbitrary distance, and then….

October 2023 after the initial sluggish month or so, I found an event. One year away, France, 100km: here we go UTMB Nice 107km. Of course, it was quite a few months later before I realised that the official vertical gain was listed as 4000m, but was really more like 5500+m and also that there was at least 1000m more descent than ascent: kind of making sense by starting inland and running ‘down’ to the sea…..

And so, the year went. A bad ankle roll in December meant six weeks of zero running (but at least I was familiar with that ;) and then re-starting again. And because of that ankle injury, I was having to tread carefully so I fell into the ‘zone 2’ experiment and ‘the uphill athlete’ experiment: try and keep to mostly zone 2 (99%, 143bpm) but also aim to incrementally increase my vertical gain throughout the year. Did I succeed? Well, I’d think so - my zone 2 got very solid (even on hills) and I progressively built up my vertical culminating with 5000m in a week, and averaging 1600m of vertical per week for the whole year.

The event then happened, and I’m now in ‘phase 2’ of my plan…Get fast and try compete at an event. Not to win (I’m too old for that sort of lark! :) but actually do well, which means a decent result in my age category. I’m also learning what I’ve gained from all my years of climbing - get over-strong so that moves feel easy! - and also integrating the latest methodologies in nutrition (a minimum of 60g of carbs per hour, and ideally pushing up to 100g or more). The hardest part is understanding speed in running - for some reason, I was really struggling to understand it but I now get that I translate it to km/hr and now I’ve got targets!!!

So, as I enter this new phase of learning speed - with the help of a coach, Rene Borg - I make sure to remember that:

• I’m a dad now and my daughter and wife are most important.

• I’ve a full-time job

• I’m in my mid-40’s

• I’m healthy and fit

• And I’m only truly starting as a ‘runner’ in 2023

Heres’ to the next 5 years - what can I do in the 45-49 age category with some serious training?! More to come :)

Gear

• Runners: North Face Summit Vectiv Pro 2

  • Worked out brilliantly - super cushioned, felt like I was floating on the downhills, zero blisters/pain-points. Probably a bit overkill for my speed however, I purchased them as I’d read enough to see that they also help with fatigue resistance and recovery so…. I will note on runs since that were ‘hard/fast’, the potential in carbon ‘supershoes’ is there on trails….

• Poles: Leki UltraTrail FX.One SuperLite

  • Very much a race-day pole - I wouldn’t use them daily as they seem too fragile for bog in Ireland. Great pole overall though and they’ll be great to pull out events.

• Jacket: Patagonia Storm Racer

  • Purchased due to Patagonia’s incredible repair program. Trying to do a small bit of sustainability.

• Rain leggings: OMM Halo pants

  • Ridiculously light, and tiny to pack, and probably ridiculously fragile for the same reason.

• Heat torch: Petzl Nao RL

• t-shirt: random Nike running t-shirt

• shorts: Decathlon trail shorts

Race report

This is a brief overview of my experience throughout the day, including the logistics of getting to the start line, etc. Bear with me as my writing is very rusty and I’ve returned to elementary level writing skills ;)

Let's start the night before. In short, you get a bus from Nice at 2:30am to the start line. That meant I was getting up at 1am as there was a 2km walk to complete to the bus collection location. And as I was up at 1am, that meant trying to go to sleep at 8pm to try and get even 4-5 hours sleep which was impossible as I’m used to getting to bed around two hours later than that. I learned a good lesson here immediately: I should have taken a half day and gone to bed at lunch for a couple of hours then gone to bed at a more usual time of 9-10pm and just grabbing a few hours beforehand.

After getting up, having a bagel, strapping my right grumpy ankle and deciding after strapping my left that I didn’t need it there (mistake as I’ll comment on below), getting by bags, I strolled through a sleepy Nice meeting some partygoers heading home alongside an ever increasing number of fellow runners making the trek over. The very savvy ones cycled the distance on an Uber shard bike - another lesson learned for next time…..

The bus takes 2 hours (roughly) and then the runners start learning in waves from 6am until 7:15am. That means potentially standing around for 2 hours. The start line is at 1300m and it’s October - we got 3-5 degrees.

The positive is you bring your drop bag to the start line and it’s - literally - 50 metres from the actual start - so pack an extra thermal top or jacket and then dump it into the drop bag. You won’t need it later in the day, but you’ll be glad of it at the start before you’re moving.

As for the early bus, it meant I was up at 1am to get kit on, and stroll 2km to the bus collection point. My usual bed time in 10/10:30 and attempting to go to bed at 8:30 didn’t work out - I’m just not used to sleeping at that time (Even when tired). So, what I’d try next time is finish work at lunch and go to bed for an 1-1.5 hour snooze, then try go to bed at normal hour of 10pm. It’s still not a full nights sleep but probably the only chance of getting more rest for msyelf at least.

For the start, you’ve a 10 minute walk down into Roubion from the bus drop-off and then its pretty chaotic in the tiny village with 1100 people sorting themselves out while dropping off drop bags, etc. Cosy! As the waves move out, however, it improves steadily. I’d probably Bring an extra thermal top which I’d leave in the drop bag also as it was around 3-5 degrees while there.

Note to self: the first kilometre or so is a wide firewood, however, it then narrows down to single track and it’s slowwww….. make sure you’re in the right place in your wave if you’re keen to keep moving. After that the run slowly settled in.

On the day, I followed Zone 2 on my Coros watch (with heart rate monitor) trying to push as much as I could into Zone 2 on the downhills, and keeping to the top-end of Zone 2 on the uphills. It worked, although I definitely feel like I left time on the table on the day by being conservative in this approach also - i.e. I didn’t do it always and there was room there, as well as dipping into Zone 3 at times also. A lesson learned for when I race an event like this next time…..

What was interesting was my UTMB index was quite a low ranking so I went off in one of the last waves. This was a positive as I had no pressure on myself, however, it was a negative due to overtaking - I was behind a lot of people who I was faster than and it turns out lots of narrow single-track means it’s hard to get by and you have get vocal! People were always pleasant, however, my inexperience showed as I stuck behind people on multiple occasions for much too long and should have been pushing on.

The first aid four aid stations passed without incident however, I was starting to notice a slight stomach issue by aid station 5 (~50km in) and, much to my surprise, some chafing issues with my shorts. I’ve never had an issue like that in all my years and it was something I needed up managing with increasing discomfort for the rest of the race, I realised after the race, I did something I’ve never done before: I tied the waist string tight! My only assumption is it pulled up the materials too tight leading to the various problems that developed… Doh and a lesson learned!

Aid station 6 is the drop-bag. Here, based on the material issue above and the stomach getting more and more unsettled, I took what was meant to be a longer stop but not too long. In every other station, I was I and out within 3-4 minutes - my planned stop of 15 minutes become 35! Another lesson learned to set a timer…

The next aid stations passed away, each requiring a little ‘skin care’, until aid station 7 where I needed to take a 20 minute stop to attempt some strapping (unsuccessfully I might add). Then it was a case of pushing on - and as luck would have it, just before aid station 8, I bumped into another Irish runner (who’d I’d briefly chatted with earlier), Kieran. We sided up and finished out the rest together which was great for a bit of social banter. The final hill was brutal, and we over-pushed it so that the final few kms of the event was essentially a walk - neither of us showing motivation to push on. As I crossed the finish line, my body then crashed due the lack of food in the previous 8 hours and then it was a case of attempting to put down some food, grab an Uber home while staying warm and passing out.

Nutrition

I had been listening to quite a few podcasts and learned the concept of getting a decent quantity of carbs per hour, ideally a minimum of 60 grams of carbohydrates, pushing up into the (Crazy mid-140’s). So, I’d gone with a strategy of aiming to hit 60m minimum per hour, but aiming to push up to 90grams.

The approach was a mix of Maurten gels and Tailwind mixed into drinks which I’d tested before on both short runs and recent 55km event.

How did it go?

In short, it was all going well -for the most part - until around half way through. The lesson learned was that at the speeds I’m going, I don’t need to hit 90g every hour, however, I should hit it as a minimum every 2-3 hours and even go well above that. The other learning was that Tailwind every hour does not go very well for myself, especially when the doses aren’t perfectly accurate with some being too dense (i.e. over 2 scoops) which starts to have issues on my stomach. What wasn’t clear after that was why the Maurten gels were not a favour either - my feeling is I hadn’t trained it enough to run when the body/mind is getting fatigued and that tastes may start to do interesting things…

12 hours in and it all started to fall apart and in the final 7 hours, I managed to take on about….150g (optimistically) in total. Oops. I dropped the ball here. What was interesting was that because I’d kept up good intake for the first 50+% of the event, my speed didn’t drop off, however, when I finished I had a major crash with severe shaking/rattles.

On top of all this, I learned that - in particular when it’s warm - I need to improve my salt/electrolyte intake with either salt tablets or an electrolyte mixed into water.

What will I do next? Likely lean into some more solid/plain food, reduce the hourly Tailwind intake, and increase my ‘training’ with gels (pushing harder than I’d even do in an event).

Conclusion

So, that’s a wrap! A genuinely great experience overall and a lot of learning to take away from it for a future event. The most interesting insight was realised that by sticking to zone 2, I had been too conservative! How nice it is to know that there is extra performance without even having to train :)

with that, thanks for reading and enjoy your next adventure!

Good overview of staying in Zone 2 for base period, and low cadence in base/building phase - building a strong engine.

Caffeine

• It’s arguable how much caffeine you need before an event of 0 to 3-4 hours if you’re well rested. The body should be fired up already. However, it can also lead to up to a 3% improvement for some in shorter events.

• If you are taking it, consider 3-6mg per kg (250-500mg) as discussed here. Take caffeine ~60 minutes before an event. Note: 200mg is in 18g of coffee beans.

• Caffeine does not benefit explosive events (e.g. 100m sprint).

• Taking caffeine on long-duration (4 hours plus) events shows noticeable gains.

• Pace caffeine intake: it has a 6 hour half-life. I.e. if you take caffeine before a marathon, no need to take more half way through. This is from Evan Lynch’s podcast above.

  • Some groups are proposing that you take it more regularly, e.g. start with a caffeine gel 2-3 miles into run. See ‘some work all play’ below.

Supplements

• Creatine: 3g-5g / day

• Protein: 80g/day

• L-carnatine: 2g / day over 6 months. Legal supplementation with decent gain.

Painkillers

DO NOT take antiflammatories before an effort due to the strain on kidneys.

Paracetamol: 1-1.5g of caffeine before a race will last for four hours. In Europe, Panadol Extra contains 65mg of caffeine also - keep in mind if using alongside a gel before the event and the 250-500mg recommendation above for caffeine.

Be careful with medications, including Paracetamol - it is processed by the liver and your body is already under stress while running. Reference: https://www.racingtheplanet.com/painkillers-used-during-ultramarathons

Pre-race fueling

Night before

• High carbs with simple foods (e.g. pasta with some olive oil and tomatoes)

Bicarb

Best (as of early 2025) is Maurten’s product

• Have meal 2.5 - 3.5 hours in advance

• Have bicarb 1hr 30 min - 1hr 50 min in advance

• Event effect for 4.5 hours.

(Pro tip: as Maurten charges the same amount for any quantity, purchase the amount for the heaviest individual but then cut the quantities down to match their recommended dosage for your weight).

Cheaper alternative is Bicarrb - mix with some gels to make it easier to go down.

Food - Full Marathon (26.2 miles)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonah Rosner | Elite Running Scientist (@rosnerperformance)

• Pre-Race: 2–4g carbs/kg (rice, bagel, energy bar). Source: Run.nrg, Instagram.

• See RosnerPerformance to the right…

Aid station Strategies

Excellent insights into getting nutrition right on ultramarathons.

Start thinking 1/2 a kilometre before the aid station on what you need.

Think when you’re feeling good of what you need to do. (note as example from myself: my stomach went off after 12 hours of the UTMB Nice 2024 event: I troubleshooted a solution to move away from gels however, didn’t troubleshoot that it wouldn’t give me enough carbs leading to a major bonk at the race. Plan!

Race Nutrition

Aim to hit 60-90 grams per hour of carbs. If high intensity, push this higher - over 100grams.

Gels

• SIS Beta Fuels 40g

• Maurtens 20g or 40g

Real Food

• From this post:

  • 'Pasta with salt or peanut sauce

  • chicken and rice burrito

  • French toast cut in strips with maple syrup

  • occasional burger

It’s 28th March 2024 and today I signed up for my first 100-km (plus) race! Exciting times as I take on a new challenge.

And as I have a new sports project, it’s time to start writing again here :)

I’ve decided to make what I’ll call a ‘perennial’ posts: one that I’ll try to update as it evolves. I’ve alluded to my gear I’ve used for trail running events in this post in 2018 - I’m going to re-write this for 2024 soon enough. this post will be what I’m capturing for my pre-race day preparation.

So, taking from this podcast, the current plan is:

• short, slow run (3km? 5km?). Very low heart rate (zone 2, 180 minus my age sort of pace).

• mobility / plyometrics

• Good food

• Meditation

• Charge all my electronics

• Prepare my race gear

• Re-review the route and ensure it’s saved onto my running watch and phone

• Eat more good food.

• Nap

• Sleep.

Anything else I need to add?

My family picked up a Yuba Fastrack cargo bike using the new Bike to Work scheme Cargo bike grant in Ireland, activated in October 2022. As it’s a relatively new bike, and information on the bike with reviews is limited, here’s a short overview now that we’ve had the bike 4 months.

Overall, the bike is a great workhorse and has actively diverted some of our routine driving activities in the city over to the bike. It turns out having an electric motor is a bit of a game changer! The motor is more than capable of towing the (heavy - 30+ kg) bike as well as its driver and whatever passengers are on board, be it children/adults or gear. As you’ll see in a photo below, that’s two bags of bark mulch (20-30kg each?) and a bag of tools/hardware on the front. Moving the bike from the base ‘eco’ mode on the motor up to ‘boost’ mode meant it was trivial to fly home and not notice that I’d potentially an extra 70kg of items on board. This is a true game changer - why drive the car for those type of trips when the bike can do it, taking up less space on the road, and also being quicker!

Overall, the bike has been a true success. I will say that we’ve noticed a few pieces of rust on some of the washers which is slightly disappointing on a bike that cost more than €4,000 (before the grant), however, it’s only on washers and not ‘critical’ items so it’s more of an aesthetic thing than anything else.

Carrying Options

The Fastrack has the capability to also carry two kids on the back on the back although we have it set up just for our one child - she truly appreciates the space on the back, and also not having to sit right up against my ass as on a more traditional bike with a shorter rear pannier. We added the basket after a month or two to the front - I’d recommend adding it immediately if it’s in stock.

One disadvantage of the rear pannier - it has non-standard widths (due to the capability to carry 200kg) which means that normal pannier bags will not work. It’s not a deal breaker as i’ve found that any baggage I have for the work commute fits in the front basket, however, it’s worth keeping in mind if that’s your thing.

The other item is the capability to put stand the bike on its tail for storage. To be honest, we don't use it much - my wife finds the bike way too heavy to do it herself for one thing! However, it is a nice handy bonus to have. Perhaps it’ll fit certain use cases.

Gripes

One notable gripe - noisy chains and derailleurs. This is just the nature of bikes, however, as the bike has so much mass, on bumpy terrain, the chain and derailleur is very noisy, banging away regularly. More of an annoyance than anything, but it really shows that there is innovation potential in bikes to come. I genuinely can’t wait for the new chainless bikes to arrive (see below). Chains and belt drives are nice, however, the revolution in electric motors means we can re-think how we ‘do’ bikes and what it means!

Chainless drive feels like a moment similar to the transition from acoustic to electric drive.

The software feels you and the road. pic.twitter.com/dZDYWsiVpq

— James Gross (@James_Gross) June 22, 2023

Conclusion

Overall, the bike is great and more than satisfies the needs of our household. It’s sturdy, seems built to last and carries everything (and then some) we need. It’s worth flagging it is not the lightest of bikes by any means so keep that in mind if you have to lift it regularly, however, that’s really the only item I’d flag. I’ll be updating this review after a year and more as I start to see wear and tear on the bike and what servicing is life - e.g. if the bike is that heavy, is there more abuse/wear on the motor and chain, etc? If you’re in the hunt for a cargo bike, keep this one in mind!

this may be of interest to anyone looking for bike racks, tow bars, or roof bars for the MG4. I've done the research but also had some great support from two shops who have chased down the parts also. This is quite the opposite to some other stores who either ignored my queries, or followed up a small bit and then gave up. I've no affiliation to either of the locations (both in Dublin) - this is just acknowledgement of their effort, and if the info is of use to anyone.

As for range impact, it's noticeable. I used the Saris (wth two road bikes on it) below to go from Dublin to CenterParcs in Longford recently 106km each way with around 90km of it on motorway which I drove at 100-105km/hr. It was around 30% each way - so a total range of 300km. so, easily a 20% hit on the battery to range. Ouch. I suspect a roof rack or two bar setup woudn't be as bad as there is less fabric straps flapping around in the wind. The Saris also sits on top of the rear tail which is likely the worst for efficiency also.

The Saris EX-2 or EX-3 (3 bike, €250 at https://www.halfords.ie/) model goes on the bike even though it's not officially certified (I assume as Saris just haven't tested it yet) - photo attached. It works but also isn't perfect - the side straps either go quite low as in the photo, or if pushed up as high as they can, aren't perfect and slip to a degree. You can't go on the side of the glass as there's a plastic frame either. I've found that all the weight ends up hanging off the top straps which stretch more than you'd think and the foot pads then end up hanging off the windows. It works fine but if I was doing regular trips with bikes I'd be looking at either option below instead. Pro-tip: cut up a bike tyre to put under the metal pieces so that your paint isn't scratched! You also can't open the boot more than around 5-10cm. As for lights and the reg plate, in my setup with two roadbikes, you can easily still see all the lights (I had family in a car behind me to verify) but the reg plate isn't visible. worth keeping in mind.....

Roof bars - note the roof is rated for a maximum off 60kg so keep in mind if putting anything up there.

Nick at thebikerack.ie (https://thebikerack.ie) was great in helping me chase down the various parts for roof. Only Thule support the car at present, and it turns out the footpack isn't even officially listed on their dealer website! The parts are:

• Wingbar Evo Roof Rails come in a set of two: In silver they cost €129.59 for the set

• Thule Th10500 Footpack (specific to the MG4) is a set of 4 and the cost is €129.59 for the set

• Thule Adaptor kit is again a set of 4 and the cost is €52.99 for the set

• Thule Proride Roof racks in silver are €161.99 each so the sub total is €323.98.

• Two bikes would set you back €640

• Just the roof bars (if you were planning to use a roof box) would be €320.

Tow bar - note: the car can tow a maximum of 500kg, but has a ball rating of 50kg. A bike rack for 2-3 bikes weighs 17-22kg so that only leaves ~30kg for the bikes. I.e. I don't think you'd be able to carry two e-bikes (even if you took out the batteries), but you could carry one and a normal roadbike, or else three non e-bikes.

Malcolm's Towbars (https://www.malcolms.ie) were outstanding here (most other places didn't come back to me), also calling the companies to find out the correct part, wiring requirements, and how to cut the floor at the rear of the car to mount the bar (this is standard on most EVs where the undertray has to be cut). It's €1000 for the towbar. Note that Frank Keane have been quoting me €1500 for the install (and even though I've been asking since January, still can't tell me when they can do it...)

Malcolm's stocks some great looking bike racks also.

I'm making do with the Saris for now as I don't travel with bikes very often. However, if I was doing any trips of any frequency I'd be looking at roof racks or tow bar. I'd probably go for the tow bar approach personally as the roof rack with bikes means your height is now well over 2 metres which would affect you getting into certain car parks, etc. (e.g. Lahinch where the fast charger is!).

lastly, I'm off to Kerry in July from Dublin with the bikes on the back. I'll report back after that trip on range. I'll be making use of the amazing fast charging capabilities of the car while on route I think..... (and thankfully Kerry has had a bunch of new fast chargers installed in Cahiersaveen and Dingle this month).

the article is a little light-touch with not a lot to take from it, however, the two images are great - showing the averages across all participants.

Declarations of vehicle conversions made to Revenue provide some indication of the steadily-growing numbers converting vans to motor caravans. With 416 conversions processed in 2019, this number grew to 536 in 2020, and the first four months of 2021 brought a further 246.

'You’re at home, wherever you are': The 20-somethings buying vans instead of houses

It would appear the lifestyle that was embraced by outdoorsy people, growing from dirt bagging in caves and tents, before progressing to vans as everyone became wealthier is now becoming a new ‘norm’ in society. Exciting on so many levels, however, we’re still in the early stages as is evidenced by many using very small vehicles - this isn’t the USA with RV-style campers!

what is interesting, and likely to occur here in the future, of course, are the impacts of all these vans - many of whom don’t use campsites: little, issues with toilets, etc.

UKclimbing is starting to flag this is as an issue in the UK with educational posts on good campervan habits. In Spain, it’s easy to get away with it as they have so much space (although anyone who has parked at the campervan sites in Margalef or Siurana may disagree….), however, more densely populated countries (Switzerland, UK, Austria) have clamped down significantly. However, go and read the comments on UKC - look at the push-back: we have a right! and we can’t afford campsites! Eh, how, about considering that when you bought your camper? Like it or not, responsibility comes with owning these vehicles - we’ll all have to step up to manage our impact going forward.

Thoughts?

Finally, I’ll show one other item that has really changed for Ireland in the past 40 years. Our wealth has significantly increased. Look at that chart below if you don’t believe me, from the IMF. (Anyone working in the Services Industry may disagree, here’s the cold hard figures about the wealth increase…).

Source: World Bank, visualised by TradingEconomics.com

Again, using me as a case study, since I was born, the GDP of Ireland has increased 16-fold. Even you were born only 20 years ago, it has increased 4-fold. While many people may disagree (and the GDP is a very blunt tool for viewing an economy as a whole), the country as a whole is significantly wealthier overall. (Many people working in certain industries, or burned from the the Celtic Tiger crash of the mid-2000’s may disagree…).

SO, AGAIN USING MYSELF AS AN EXAMPLE, THE POPULATION HAS INCREASED BY 1.5 MILLION SINCE I WAS BORN AND GONE FROM A GDP OF ~$25 BILLION TO ~$400 BILLION TODAY.

In addition, as our wealth has increased, we’re also working fewer hours gaining an extra 161 hours in the last 20 years alone: that’s almost 7 days per year to do extra….stuff. We also just have a lot of time for ‘other leisure’ in Ireland (see image right: click to enlarge). We live in a wealthy country and that means we’re not just trying to survive by putting food on our plate, or a roof over our head. We can afford to ‘do stuff’. And as we found last year when the whole of Ireland, couldn’t leave the country, there is a lot of us, and only so many spots that people can do to.

So the key point: there are now a lot more of us on the island of Ireland, and we’re also a lot wealthier. This enables people to afford cars, and aspire to do ‘luxury’ items such as travel and explore.

Marvel at what has changed over the world:

• In 1800, there were 1.0 billion people on the whole planet

• In 1900, there were 1.6 billion people on the whole planet

• In 2000, there were 6.2 billion people on the whole planet

• In 2019, there were 7.7 billion people on the whole planet

Look at that graph right showing the trend. Those numbers are incredible, and as you’ll notice that line of growth is not slowing just yet either (we’re expected to peak somewhere around 10 billion total). What I’m trying to highlight here, is that when people got ideas to travel and explore (and we can look at easy examples like Columbus in 1492, ‘finding’ the USA), there just weren’t a lot of us around (but let’s not get into another tangent discussing the murder of the era, o.k :).

To make this relevant to the country where this post originated from, I’ll focus on just one location for this: population increases in Ireland. We all “remember the good old days” when things were smaller, simpler, quieter, right? Maybe because it was! As it happens, we have a pretty good idea of Ireland’s population back to the 1700 or so (graph to the right). But let’s make it relevant to those of us who are actually alive right now:

Source: @jlpobrien

• Born in 2000, so you’re now 21? The population last year, when you were 20, was ~6.9 million

• Born in 1990, so you’re now 31? The population, when you were 20, was ~6.3 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+600,000 people)

• Born in 1980, so you’re now 41? The population when you were 20 was ~5.5 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+1,.4 million people)

• Born in 1970, so you’re now 51? The population when you were 20 was ~5.1 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+1.8 million people)

• Born in 1960, so you’re now 61? The population when you were 20 was ~4.8 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+2.1 million people)

• Born in 1950, so you’re now 71? The population when you were 20 was ~4.4 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+2.5 million people)

• Born in 1940, so you’re now 81? The population when you were 20 was ~4.4 million. The population is now 6.9 million (+2.5 million people)

So, in the last 70 years, there are now 2.5 million extra people on the island of Ireland. Read that again, there is now TWO AND A HALF MILLION EXTRA PEOPLE on the island in the last 70 years (a more than 50% increase in the last 70 years).

DUBLIN

Since Dublin is the main urban centre in Ireland, and as Wicklow sees some of the largest challenges with the number of users, let us look at Dublin in isolation. Since 1950, Dublin has grown annually by, on average, 1.12% from roughly 600,000 inhabitants to 1.4 million (2020) - that’s over double. Let us do the same routine:

• Born in 2000, so you’re now 21? The population last year, when you were 20, was ~1.4 million

• Born in 1990, so you’re now 31? The population, when you were 20, was ~1.1 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+300,000 people)

• Born in 1980, so you’re now 41? The population when you were 20 was ~ 0.99 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+400,000 people)

• Born in 1970, so you’re now 51? The population when you were 20 was ~.91 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+500,000 people)

• Born in 1960, so you’re now 61? The population when you were 20 was ~.9 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+500,000 people)

• Born in 1950, so you’re now 71? The population when you were 20 was ~.77 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+600,000 people)

• Born in 1940, so you’re now 81? The population when you were 20 was ~.66 million. The population is now 1.4 million (+640,000 people)

If you watch closely, Dublin didn’t exist west of the word ‘Ballyfermot’ in the early 1980’s…. (Source: Google Earth timelapse.)

Notice how the push south onto the edge of wicklow hills also occurs.

USING MYSELF AS AN EXAMPLE: JUST ANOTHER 40-YEAR OLD

As we know kids don’t use Facebook (thankfully!), we can assume that most individuals joining in the interesting threads kicked off by Ambrose after his post are at least in their 30’s and most likely, 40 and above (for the most part).

I’m 40 so I’ll use myself as an example.

For myself, there are now 2.1 million people EXTRA in Ireland, and 500,000 extra people in Dublin since I was born.

Even if we take it from when I turned 20, there are now 1.4 million extra people, and 400,000 extra people in Dublin alone.

That is a lot of extra people on the island to show an interest in doing activities of all kinds……

People play to their own memories and biases so for many, their memory of the old days IS true - there were a lot less people around.

In short, what I’m trying to say is: even ignoring all the fancy smartphones, and the invention of social media - there’s just a lot more people in the last 60-70 years (from when it was at its lowest). And not only that, but the number of people is accelerating.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE FOR IRELAND POPULATION

Let us make sure to predict for both Dublin and the island (I’m too lazy to break it out for the Republic and Northern Ireland, sorry! Anyway, Star Trek predicted the island would be unified by 2024 - fun fact, this piece was removed when the episode was broadcast in 1990 in Ireland - how is that to stir a debate! An aside: I’ve no side/opinion in that debate - I’ve no time for that sort of discussion, we all live on the same planet).

As a reminder, in 2020, Dublin is around 1.4 million people for 2020, and Ireland somewhere around 6.9 million.

Now, let us look at predictions.

The UN predicts that Dublin’s population is going to increase by another 31% by 2036, and Ireland’s will grow by 12%. So - here’s the same graph below again showing those figures.

That means Dublin will go from 1.4 million to 1.76 by 2036: that’s another 360,000 people living near Wicklow in the next 16 years. That also means an extra 1.6 million people on the island - an aside: we roughly match what was our peak population before the famine at that point.

THAT MEANS DUBLIN WILL GO FROM 1.4 MILLION TO 1.76 BY 2036: THAT’S ANOTHER 300,000 PEOPLE LIVING NEAR WICKLOW IN THE NEXT 16 YEARS.

Dublin, 1960 - 2036 (using UN predicted data)

WHAT IF THE FAMINE NEVER HAPPENED?

An aside: here’s an interesting thing to consider for fun. At Ireland’s peak before the Famine, there were an estimated 8.5 million inhabitants of the island. If we were to extrapolate that out using the growth rate we’ve seen for all other countries since then, Ireland’s population would now be somewhere between 20 and 30 million……. you think it’s hard to find ‘isolation’ now?

Where to go from here?

Think about where you are now. Imagine what happens if it grows at the average rate of growth predicted for Ireland. how does it impact the environment with those extra people? is the network being set up so we’re not so car dependent (more urban centres, less one-off housing, etc.)? Are we planning to protect enough wild spaces? Are we building up enough property for these people? And the right types of property for a country this new number of people?

Love to hear your thoughts….

As I come from a Technology sector background (over half of my career working in the telecommunication sector), I was very interested to ponder is it all social media’s fault? That was my key question, as, I’ve found in most cases, it’s never usually one specific reason, but a range. So basing off that, here’s my few different factors below that I think all relate which I’ll discuss first, before delving into what I think are possible solutions (I suspect this will be contentious!).
My goal with this post is to be comprehensive on a few topics, while being comprehensible on the areas I’m covering. Let the discussions begin!

Executive Summary

For those of you who aren’t inclined to read this now-long post, here’s the Twitter/tweet version of it:

• Almost everyone now carries a supercomputer in their pocket with a great camera. Those supercomputers are connected to the Internet, which is becoming accessible from almost anywhere at at time. This has enabled new disciplines like social networks, which then enabled completely new industries such as influencers, etc.

• The population of Ireland is only growing - this is inevitable. It has grown more than 50% in the past seventy years, and likely will increase by over a third in the next twenty to thirty years.

• Assuming these, access to the knowledge of all locations will only become more prevalent - how we manage this, and how we manage our outdoors needs deep thought. Scroll to the bottom for my suggestions.

With that, grab a coffee and enjoy!

Rise of the (digital) camera

Firstly, let us start with digital devices and before we point the finger at social media, let’s also highlight the enabler of those photos, the camera.

Above shows the number of camera sales (predominantly digital) back to 2006. The dedicated camera (i.e. just this one purpose) peaked in sales at roughly 119 million sales in 2008. For those wondering, this is the highest sales of camera, ever, if you go all the way back to their invention: here’s the data back to 1950 if anyone is motivated enough to back and manually transcribe them into a spreadsheet. 119 million sales in one year is a big number, but if we move to the next device…

The only part of really lives on of this device’s original name is in the title: the smart ‘phone’

Alongside this, another device had been created: the ‘mobile phone’ (if anyone wants to read the history of its invention, this book from the inventor of the very first mobile phone is great). In 1979, it was just a telephone without a cable, but my the mid-90’s, individuals were expanding the capabilities of the little devices to become handheld organizers, and, in 1999 the first mobile phone with a digital camera appeared.

While the first digital cameras and the first cameras in phones/smartphones were very poor, each year has seen revolutions in quality and performance. Then, in mid-2007 the revolution occurred with the sale of the first iPhone, jumpstarting the ‘smartphone’ revolution that we all know and live on today. What is easy to forget is that point changed the ‘phone’ into a ‘computer’, and by giving every single user a supercomputer in their pocket, the possibility to take great photos anywhere, at any time, and even if it wasn’t so great, instantly edit that same photo into some amazing.

Smartphone's aren't just computers masquerading as telephones; they're also, increasingly, cameras masquerading as computers

Source: The Atlantic, 2013

So, lets look at what happened to both the smartphone, and digital cameras. As mentioned, digital cameras peaked in sale in 2008. In 2007, the year the iPhone went on sale, Apple sold roughly 3 million iPhones in its first year. Android came a couple of years later and now, when we combine iPhone and Android sales, in 2020, 1.4 BILLION phones were sold in 2020 (and this is down from the peak in 2018 of 1.55 billion). In that same time, sales of digital cameras for the whole planet was 9 million devices in 2020. The last time they were that low was in…1977. In short, the dedicated camera is as niche as niche can be. Here’s the same graph of camera sales overlaid with smartphone sales. Digital camera sales now look like a flat line…

The key takeaway here is: there are 5.5 billion adults on the planet right now. And, 4 billion of them have a smartphone/supercomputer with a great digital camera in their pocket!. Even the worst/cheapest smartphone nowadays (as cheap as $40 in some parts of the world) have pretty decent cameras!

So, this is a key item: we all have a camera in our pocket at all times. Even if the physical camera sensor isn’t particularly good, advances in software mean various filters and editing can be completed to make for very impressive photos and video.

Internet for all

Alongside that, there was another item that enabled the smartphone to become so popular: the Internet. Your iPhone or Android would be wildly less useful if all those apps we depend on didn’t have an internet connection. And it’s both the supercomputer in your pocket and the Internet, that enabled the new mediums that we know as social networks, that didn’t exist before the early 2000s. While they existed before smartphones as we know it appeared, it was making them mobile that truly let them flourish when we could access them at any time from anywhere. For that to happen, mobile phone networks have made huge strides to blanket the main areas people visit, as well as also through economies of scale, dropping the price. As an amusing context, when I got my own first mobile phone in 1998, it was £20 and for that, I got 10 minutes of calls and 20 text messages: for the same money now, you have unlimited calls, texts, and most likely, unlimited data. There is no cost to uploading all those photos to whatever your favorite network of choice is.

Not only that, but coverage has steadily improved (although everyone can think of moments and areas where there is rubbish coverage!), even in very rural areas. And, due to the quirk of mountain peaks giving clear views in all directions, more often than not, there is coverage at the top of every summit as there is a ‘view’ from your pocket-supercomputer to a mobile phone tower. Even many valleys now have good, even excellent, coverage. (by the way, one of the next revolutions coming to mobile phone technology is the use of satellites to fill in any coverage gaps. Alongside this, new products such as SpaceX’s Starlink will be bringing Internet to every single location on the planet).

So this is the second key item: unless you are that ultra-rare exception to all rules, everyone is carrying a device with access to the Internet, more often than not, with very good coverage.

Those social networks

Lastly, before I move on to other items I believe are factors, look at the topic that started off this now-very-long-and-getting-longer post: those social networks. Loved and derided in equal measure and having appeared almost immediately after the world wide web was invented. The WWW is largely acknowledged as starting around 1993 with the first web browsers (Fun fact: I’ve been online since 1994) and the first ‘social networks’ appearing around 1996 with bolt.com. Social networks progressively got bigger until we ended up entering what I’ll call the modern era. Facebook is the global monster with 2.8 billion monthly active users, however, there is a huge number of other networks where people share content, all with over a billion users (many of which you’ll have never heard of): Twitter, WeChat, Line, Tiktok, Reddit, Twitch, Fornite (you thought this was just a game?), Youtube, amongst many, many, others you’ll have never heard of, and yet have millions, tens or hundreds of millions of users.

It’s also worth acknowledging a key item: up until the social network appeared, it was more involved in effort than most were willing to take on to post content online. Blogging existed alongside, but even that took more effort (setting up the blog, etc., etc.). Now, in 2021, we have 320 BILLION photos posted DAILY online by a range of users (and users can be defined as individuals, companies, news - real and fake, etc., etc.). That is a lot of photos, to put it mildly. And absolutely, all those - more often than not, excellent-looking - photos get viewed by those 4-5 billion people are online, either through computers or smartphones (predominantly the latter). There are also not just photos also: 720,000 hours of video daily uploaded, countless blog posts, a growing-quickly number of podcasts, new upstarts such as Clubhouse, etc.

These social networks consume a large part of people’s days now also: 58 minutes on average per user on Facebook platforms! Which absolutely means they are seeing great photos of amazing locations. But people do not follow Dunbar’s Law (the maximum number of relationships anyone can maintain is 150): most people follow a much larger number, and due to this, it leads to the ‘manipulation’ of our feeds so we see what the ‘social networks’ think is most relevant: which doesn’t necessarily mean your local friends and that cool location where they went. What you will see, is what drives the most ‘engagement’ (i.e. making you spend more time on the website), and most likely, bigger sites, and your ‘interests’ (I’m fairly certain anyone reading this blog sees a lot of climbing and outdoor sports accounts).

However, it’s too simplistic to just blame social networks for this ill. See the photo to my right. I visited Siam Reap in Cambodia in 2007 - the year the iPhone was launched, digital cameras were pretty junk, and…..Facebook had only opened up access to everyone in September 2006 outside of university email addresses. I.e. social networks had no material impact on people going to these areas. But books such as Lonely Planet, tv documentaries, magazine articles all had: and really, social networks, are just another link to media and distribution. As long as people have been able to write (possibly even speak?), people have been sharing stories of places and traveling to those locations: the only difference is now there are a lot more of us….

The third key item: social networks exist, but they weren’t the originator of sharing of media. They may be like throwing petrol on a fire, but the fire (which was enabled by many - not just the wealthy/elite - having the means to travel and explore) was getting larger by the day anyway.

The Creator (or Passion) Economy

Lastly, here’s an interesting piece before I move on to other factors impacting our outdoors (and as important, if not more so, I believe): the industries that have been created due to social networks. We call them ‘podcasters’, or ‘bloggers’, or ‘youtubers’, or ‘tiktokers’, and the ‘influencer’. all terms that didn’t exist 5 years ago in 2015. This is now big business, and people even aspire to these as future jobs when they leave school! I’m fully on board with this: if you’d asked someone in the Victorian era what they thought of people getting paid to sit in front of screens, or be paid to bring people into the outdoors, they’d have been as equally dismissive as people are now of the new jobs that exist online.

The problem is, right now, it’s the early days and the whole Internet runs - for the most part - off of digital advertising. These industries are built solely on ‘engagement’ (i.e. the more eyeballs that see the content, the better): the goal of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter is for you to spend more time on it so you see more ads. The goal here is quantity.

But it won’t stay this way.

Social networks are going to change and evolve, especially as they (debatably?) compared to the 21st-century version of nicotine.. And, most importantly, the Creator Economy is only getting started. This creator economy can be seen already and in many ways the recent Covid-19 pandemic may help jump-start it as more people are more comfortable paying online: subscribing to creators so that you’re paying for quality content, not just quantities of content. See simple examples from myself: want to support my writing and production on my writing here, or my suspended-for-now project where I discuss the impacts on outdoors? Subscribe! (the latter of those links is a project of mine where you sign up for a small monthly fee).

Also, if you are a producer of great content, stop just publishing it to Instagram and the other networks, and host it yourself - you own the material there, and people will support you. It is coming. Want to know more on this: I suggest start with the pionneering essay of Kevin Kelly here on 1,000 true fans (written in 2008!), or the updated review of this with 100 true fans and this related discussion.

The fourth key item on technology and digital devices: people and publishers/companies will continue to publish media that shows incredible locations, and people will want to go there. Asking them to stop is…naive, especially when you consider the billions of pieces of content (video, writing, etc.)? there is no way to police this: much of the content is written by people not even in the area they are discussing so have no idea of the potentially sensitive nature of what they are posting.

Population changes: Ireland and Dublin in focus

Moving away from technology, I’m going to dive into a particular item as it has changed significantly: population numbers. This was a great journey and project for myself - I had no idea what I’d find when I did this, only that I believed there may be something…..

Marvel at what has changed over the world:

• In 1800, there were 1.0 billion people on the whole planet

• In 1900, there were 1.6 billion people on the whole planet

• In 2000, there were 6.2 billion people on the whole planet

• In 2019, there were 7.7 billion people on the whole planet

Look at that graph right showing the trend. Those numbers are incredible, and as you’ll notice that line of growth is not slowing just yet either (we’re expected to peak somewhere around 10 billion total). What I’m trying to highlight here, is that when people got ideas to travel and explore (and we can look at easy examples like Columbus in 1492, ‘finding’ the USA), there just weren’t a lot of us around (but let’s not get into another tangent discussing the murder of the era, o.k :).

To make this relevant to the country where this post originated from, I’ll focus on just one location for this: population increases in Ireland. We all “remember the good old days” when things were smaller, simpler, quieter, right? Maybe because it was! As it happens, we have a pretty good idea of Ireland’s population back to the 1700 or so (graph to the right). But let’s make it relevant to those of us who are actually alive right now:

Born in 2000, so you’re now 21? The population last year, when you were 20, was ~6.9 million

Born in 1990, so you’re now 31? The population, when you were 20, was ~6.3 million

Born in 1980, so you’re now 41? The population when you were 20 was ~5.5 million

Born in 1970, so you’re now 51? The population when you were 20 was ~5.1 million

Born in 1960, so you’re now 61? The population when you were 20 was ~4.8 million

Born in 1950, so you’re now 71? The population when you were 20 was ~4.4 million

Born in 1940, so you’re now 81? The population when you were 20 was ~4.4 million

So, in the last 70 years, there are now 2.5 million extra people on the island of Ireland. Read that again, there is now TWO AND A HALF MILLION EXTRA PEOPLE on the island in the last 70 years (a more than 50% increase in the last 70 years).

Dublin

Since Dublin is the main urban centre in Ireland, and as Wicklow sees some of the largest challenges with the number of users, let us look at Dublin in isolation. Since 1950, Dublin has grown annually by, on average, 1.12% from roughly 600,000 inhabitants to 1.4 million (2020) - that’s over double. Let us do the same routine:

Born in 2000, so you’re now 21? The population last year, when you were 20, was ~1.4 million

Born in 1990, so you’re now 31? The population, when you were 20, was ~1.1 million

Born in 1980, so you’re now 41? The population when you were 20 was ~ 0.99 million

Born in 1970, so you’re now 51? The population when you were 20 was ~.91 million

Born in 1960, so you’re now 61? The population when you were 20 was ~.9 million

Born in 1950, so you’re now 71? The population when you were 20 was ~.77 million

Born in 1940, so you’re now 81? The population when you were 20 was ~.66 million

If you watch closely, Dublin didn’t exist west of the word ‘Ballyfermot’ in the early 1980’s….

Notice how the push south onto the edge of wicklow hills also occurs.

Source: Google Earth timelapse

Using myself as an example: just another 40-year old

As we know kids don’t use Facebook (thankfully!), we can assume that most individuals joining in the interesting threads kicked off by Ambrose after his post are at least in their 30’s and most likely, 40 and above (for the most part).

I’m 40 so I’ll use myself as an example.

For myself, there are now 2.1 million people EXTRA in Ireland, and 500,000 extra people in Dublin since I was born.

Even if we take it from when I turned 20, there are now 1.4 million extra people, and 400,000 extra people in Dublin alone.

That is a lot of extra people on the island to show an interest in doing activities of all kinds……

People play to their own memories and biases so for many, their memory of the old days IS true - there were a lot less people around.

In short, what I’m trying to say is: even ignoring all the fancy smartphones, and the invention of social media - there’s just a lot more people in the last 60-70 years (from when it was at its lowest). And not only that, but the number of people is accelerating.

Predicting the Future for Ireland population

Let us make sure to predict for both Dublin and the island (I’m too lazy to break it out for the Republic and Northern Ireland, sorry! Anyway, Star Trek predicted the island would be unified by 2024 - fun fact, this piece was removed when the episode was broadcast in 1990 in Ireland - how is that to stir a debate! An aside: I’ve no side/opinion in that debate - I’ve no time for that sort of discussion, we all live on the same planet).

As a reminder, in 2020, Dublin is around 1.4 million people for 2020, and Ireland somewhere around 6.9 million.

Now, let us look at predictions.

The UN predicts that Dublin’s population is going to increase by another 31% by 2036, and Ireland’s will grow by 12%. So - here’s the same graph below again showing those figures.

That means Dublin will go from 1.4 million to 1.76 by 2036: that’s another 300,000 people living near Wicklow in the next 16 years. That also means an extra 1.6 million people on the island - an aside: we roughly match what was our peak population before the famine at that point.

That means Dublin will go from 1.4 million to 1.76 by 2036: that’s another 300,000 people living near Wicklow in the next 16 years.

What if the Famine never happened?

An aside: here’s an interesting thing to consider for fun. At Ireland’s peak before the Famine, there were an estimated 8.5 million inhabitants of the island. If we were to extrapolate that out using the growth rate we’ve seen for all other countries since then, Ireland’s population would now be somewhere between 20 and 30 million……. you think it’s hard to find ‘isolation’ now?

Irish Wealth

Finally, I’ll show one other item that has really changed for Ireland in the past 40 years. Our wealth has significantly increased. Look at that chart below if you don’t believe me, from the IMF. (Anyone working in the Services Industry may disagree, here’s the cold hard figures about the wealth increase…).

Again, using me as a case study, since I was born, the GDP of Ireland has increased 16-fold. Even you were born only 20 years ago, it has increased 4-fold. While many people may disagree (and the GDP is a very blunt tool for viewing an economy as a whole), the country as a whole is significantly wealthier overall. (Many people working in certain industries, or burned from the the Celtic Tiger crash of the mid-2000’s may disagree…).

So, again using myself as an example, the population has increased by 1.5 million since I was born and gone from a GDP of ~$25 billion to ~$400 billion today.

In addition, as our wealth has increased, we’re also working fewer hours gaining an extra 161 hours in the last 20 years alone: that’s almost 7 days per year to do extra….stuff. We also just have a lot of time for ‘other leisure’ in Ireland (see image right: click to enlarge). We live in a wealthy country and that means we’re not just trying to survive by putting food on our plate, or a roof over our head. We can afford to ‘do stuff’. And as we found last year when the whole of Ireland, couldn’t leave the country, there is a lot of us, and only so many spots that people can do to.

So the key point: there are now a lot more of us on the island of Ireland, and we’re also a lot wealthier. This enables people to afford cars, and aspire to do ‘luxury’ items such as travel and explore.

In review (finally, you’re almost there!)

What I’m trying to highlight throughout all the post above is a couple of things. Firstly, we all now carry a camera in our pocket, and a lot of those cameras are of incredible quality, and as they are really just mini-supercomputers, can edit a photo to look stunning instantly. Alongside this, yes, absolutely there is an impact from social media. When you can post that incredible image out to your 'network’, essentially instantly, of course, there’s a likelihood of more people being impressed and want to go visit that location. For those skilled in social media (or heavily using it for their business), you’re publishing to an even larger number of potential viewers. I genuinely believe that social media is going to evolve (the Creator Economy is only getting started, in case anyone is wondering), but it’s not going anywhere really

However, alongside that, we also have a massive increase in population in Ireland. Our island population has increased by over 50% in the last 60-70 years, and the population of Dublin has doubled (100%) in the same time. We’re also wealthier, with more free/leisure time and that can only mean one thing: people will want to do activities. And in a year such as a global pandemic, we can’t offload our numbers on other countries which means Ireland suddenly starts creaking at the seams. But the thing is: this isn’t a one-off:

What are the solutions?

This is a range of ideas to get a conversation going. I’ve no strong bias that any of them need to happen, but I do have a strong bias we need to take a hard look at them all and really consider

1. Let me start with one that makes the most of the apps and social networks themselves: Informational Alerts within the apps themselves:

   1. A feature I would love built into both social networks whenever a post is uploaded from within a national park: a ‘did you know’ alert highlighting the importance of national parks, cleanliness, outdoor best practices, and so on.

   2. Also, potentially even more useful: an alert built into the mapping services (Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc.) that most people use to find their way to the parking spots of these areas. Say, someone gets directions to Laragh within Google of Apple Maps, when they arrive at the destination, it pops up with the ‘arrived’ alert, and also a list of best practices within national parks.

2. There is lots of movement to improve our usage of outdoor spaces. Coillte and its plans to ‘restore’ some forests into recreational areas, and new strategies such as ‘The County Wicklow Outdoor Strategy 2020 to 2025', and various activities from outdoor sports bodies such as Mountaineering Ireland, however, while this is all fantastic, are they thinking about where the puck is (current population levels), or where the puck is going? (as the great saying goes). I’m yet to see the true vision: it’s easy to focus on the ‘now’, now what is needed 10 years down the line. Remember, our population is absolutely growing - this isn’t some hypothetical!

3. Prepare, prepare, prepare: there will be 300,000 extra people in Dublin in the next 15-20 years. that means 300,000 potentials (likely?) extra visitors to our scenic spots. How about, you know, planning ahead? We’re making shit of some of our hills, and with an inability to put in proper, well-maintained, trails for all those individuals, it’s only going to get worse. We can stick our head in the sand and pretend that people aren’t going to want to visit pretty, popular areas, but I know even the most ardent people who are most passionate (selfish?) about keeping areas empty, know the cat is out of the bag and he’s not getting back in…

4. More people does not mean building bigger wider roads to the areas though: that’s the worst possible idea and we’ve been beating that idea to death since the early 1900’s. As we enter the new mobility era where essentially every form of transportation is going to be electrified, how about building out amazing cycling and walking network that feeds out from Dublin out across Wicklow, allowing people to get into the hills using electric propulsion. And I mean get to the bottom of hills in this method, not drive them up the hill! Picking an arbitrary starting point of Marley Park, it’s 30km as the crow flies, or 40km by the current road networks. Electric bikes can comfortably cruise at 30km/hr - that’s an hour each way. Secondly, improve public transport options, or I don’t know, take the rental scooter/bike model like Bleeper in Dublin and ‘drop’ options all over the wicklow roads? Anything that gets users away from driving 1-3 ton vehicles with only a couple of people in them.

5. Out-there idea #1: Permits: this will upset a lot of people… Like it or not, I suspect this needs to happen for some areas at some point in time. There are just too many people going, and this number will only increase. Personally, I’ve seen permits in action (New Zealand, Spain, USA, Iceland) and while it’s a hassle by having to pre-plan, it noticeably improves the experience for all.

6. Out-there idea #2: Demolish a bunch of the one-off housing that has ruined our countryside and make some more ‘wild’ areas. Seriously, why not? (if you want to see an excellent discussion on how much of a shitshow we’ve made of this, I highly recommend EcoEye from January 2021 where the present discusses his own mistakes and what we need to do about it. here. But really, we have broken our countryside and if we spent all this time wrecking it in the past 50-60 years, why not spend the next 50-60 years undoing as much as it as we can for the benefit of us all?

7. Out-there idea #3: Why do we think we have to right to ‘isolation’ in all locations? How about we just take a couple of areas, and shut them off to humans. We’re pretty abusive on the planet so what thinks we can just go for our space?

8. Talk to the Influencers and ask them to either stop posting from the cool locations such as Lough Ouler, or ask them to put a message underneath each of their posts asking people to respect the area. Maybe I’m getting too old and crusty however, I genuinely believe that will never happen - half the people posting aren’t even from the areas so have no idea of what they’re talking about!

That should be enough options to stimulate debate - there’s lots of other options we can look at and I hope to see some replies. If you want to reply to me, you can comment below, or else hit me up via the contact form on this site. (sorry, it’s unlikely I’ll be checking Facebook….).

Finally….

This is kind of off-topic…. The other trend I saw when I did open up Facebook for the first time this year was what can be dumbed down to ‘people are dumb, won’t learn, feel entitled to just park where they like and trample/go anywhere, etc’. I’m not even going to play this game: there’s a sense of arrogance and we-know-better attitude here that just isn’t helpful. If I took the same approach as someone much more knowledgeable of the Internet than most, I could apply the same thinking to all: do you know in the tech sector that the general consensus is that people who use Facebook are dumb, won’t learn, should educate themselves, etc.? Sound familiar?

With that, anyone who read this far, fair dues! Look forward to hearing from you.

Personally, a few things also happened….

1) Back to the office - for a while

After returning to Dublin at the beginning of January, I noticed quite quickly from my trawls of the Internet that the world was about to be blown up. Reports of “WHO says new China coronavirus could spread, warns hospitals worldwide” started to pop up in my Twitter feed sometime in mid-January while I was settling back in, and trawling the Interwebs for opportunities. There’s nothing like reading about an imminent global pandemic to focus the mind on getting a job quickly!

As it happened, it was all to work out well as a great opportunity for a role that combined a bunch of my skillsets (technical understanding, coaching/mentor role which was ideal for a managerial position, and a telco/technology background) came in front of me through the network (never underestimate the power of the colleague/friends network….) starting with the amazing team at eCom Solutions. Starting in mid/late-February, I was in the position to spend 6-7 weeks face to face with the team before we were all sent home in our new work-from-home world that we’re all living in.

Lessons learned?

• never underestimate keeping an eye on future news and the power of Twitter. If I hadn’t seen the Covid-19 pandemic on route, I may not have rushed as much for a role and ended up looking at the time that companies were starting to lockdown.

• Working from home doesn’t work for all, but it sure does for me. Gets rid of all the expense of working in town, I’m lucky to have a great home working setup, and focusing is much easier without office noise. I like it 👍

2. Continued as part of sea swimmers, joined by the rest of Dublin

Also mentioned in the previous post, regular swims confined throughout 2020, an ideal activity during COVID-19 times. And as anyone else who’s been doing this regularly, you’ll have noticed that it’s the year of sea-swimming, with mobs at the main Dublin venues continuing, much to even my surprise, into December!

You’ll spot a reference to item number 5 in one of the photos below…

3. continued work with a coach until…

as mentioned in the previous post, I’d start working with Rob of MyTherapyPhysio from January and had been steadily working through the program, including a couple of adjustments based off of input and discussions. All went well and is a great demo of the power of a consistent routine. Here’s some basic numbers showing what I was at in late January and what I was at by June:

• Weighted pull-ups (5 reps):

  • +10kg (Jan), +25kg (July)

• Dips:

  • +2kg (Jan), +11kg (July)

• 1-leg pistols:

  • +3kg (Jan), +16kg (July)

• One-arm hangs 20mm edge (note that I transferred from the lattice edge to the Beastmaker 2000 at one point as was finding the lattice rung friction a little off):

  • -13kg (Jan), -6kg (July)

• Density hangs (30-second hangs with removed or added weight):

  • +1 (Jan), +10kg (July)

Straight off, big gains in basic muscle exercises. Dips was a major milestone coming off the shoulder surgery - zero pain now in these. With fingers, it’s a slow steady burn in gains on basic one-arm test, however, a very decent gain for density hangs.. note: these aren’t for anyone to benchmark off as everyone is different, and also, there’s a lot stronger people out there than me. However, what should be take away is that they were gains made with 5 hours of training per week… e.g. one arm finger strength went from 79% of body weight to 90%. Imagine what YOU could climb if you gained an extra 10% in strength!

4. slammed with an autoimmune issue

You’ll notice all the numbers above all are up to June…. the plan had been to keep at this steadily indefinitely, however, my body had other ideas… after returning from a lovely long week away in the west of Ireland, I woke up to agony in my ankles and various other issues. Three days later, I’d given in and was at the doctors. 8 hours after the doctor, I was sitting in the emergency ward of St James Hospital, where I’d be transferred to a bed for the next three days. Various tests later and I was sent home with the mostly all clear, with a follow-up call two weeks later reporting I’d had some autoimmune response to…something… and to continue on with life! Of course, while I was given the all-clear, energy levels weren’t the same for quite a while after and with some imminent changes in life coming later in the year, I was pulled away to focus on them. Training sadly never got re-started (which also shows the challenge of when a routine gets broken…) and would only start again (at a lower rate) in November. However, this leads me to the some rather amazing, excellent news so there’s no negativity here….

5. Ayla arrived

See that photo from the sea swims above? You’ll notice has a little bump… and in December 3rd, that bump transformed as little Ayla entered the world! Mom, Naomi, showed just how amazing women are, and continues to do so in the early days of being up our little daughter.

as both Naomi and myself have offered, if anyone wants to hear our birthing story, please reach out to one of us. We’re more than happy to share it over an email, message or a call (of which we’re all well used to calls online these days!).

Reflecting on my life up to now, I can only hope to continue with the same adventures in life, introducing her to many incredible experiences with a lot of fun along the way! You start to recognise your values pretty quickly when this amazing little bundle of joy is curled up on one of our chests - long may it last.

Speakikg of Ayla, I suspect rime will be in even more short supply going forward however let’s hope it’s not December 2021 before the next update!

1996

• with scouts, toped roped up the main face of Hollywood crag as first experience of rock climbing. Still remember being told about the ‘hard’ line up the wall on the right (from memory, it’s an E2)

• the same year, visited the indoor climbing ‘wall’ (made up of pieces of rock concreted into the wall of a sports gym).

1998

• joined the rockclimbing club at DCU after starting university there. University criteria was that it must have a climbing wall!

• one day outdoors top-roping routes in Dalkey quarry alongside bouldering at the climbing wall in DCU.

1999

• climbed outdoors for first time at Dalkey Quarry with some other starters, from memory leading a HS (grade 4 sport?).

• Competed at first Irish Bouldering League events.

• First trip abroad to Wales for Easter weekend. Note the overpacked bag above, the scrawny arms and even scrawnier physique! A great weekend, culminating in leading my third ever lead, 3 pitches up a multi-pitch which transpired to be a HVS - we were on the wrong route….

• continued progressing indoors, and outdoors at Dalkey, soloing some easy routes and improving roped climbing, culminating with on sighting E1 in August 1999 (less than one year after starting). On the same day, after topping out, participated in my first rescue, helping an individual who had taken a swing on a poorly aligned top-rope resulting in a headwound.

• First trip abroad to Spain, visiting Montserrat and Siurana. First experience of post-accident scars, when had a mild panic on a route in Montserrat - an interesting experience. Lots of climbing, primarily up to 6a+, with a near-onsight of a 6b+. Heady days!

• First climbing injury on return at 1st bouldering league event. A foot slip leading to a pulled tendon in left ring finger. 3 months off due to injury. Hard lesson in avoiding injury, especially tendons! (the tendon still feels tight over two decades later).

2000

• after the previous injury, back into climbing both indoors and outdoors. DCU’s wall was particularly good at improvement: slab to 20 degrees steep, it forced to improve a lot at technique and small holds.

• onsight soloing E1.

• Visited Gola Island for the first time, onsighting multiple E2’s.

• First Alpine trip, to Chamonix. Big learning experience, trying out new routes on big mountain, etc. completed a bunch of the well-known easy classics - had no idea how slow we were! Major near-death experience after belay ripped out on 2nd pitch of a route (another post will write that up…). Climbed 6c+ on sport.

2001

• Continued attending Irish Bouldering League comps, climbing outdoors.

• Visited Ceuse for the first time. Lots of routes, 6a - 6c, culminated with a final day onsight of first 7a (Nitassinan) on the Biographie wall. Told beforehand that “we could never climb 7a” by another college buddy/climber so I had the mind focused ;)

• First visit to Ballykeefe Quarry, Ireland’s ‘first’ sport climbing crag (see right). Grid bolted……

2002

• final year of university so while slightly reduced outdoor activities, still kept indoor training. A UK climber doing construction work not the redevelopment of Croke Park tells me many of the problems I’m climbing at the DCU wall are 7C-8A.

• First visit to Alladie, Burren.

• 3-month Summer road-trip with two university friends. Font, Frankenjura, Ceuse, Siurana. Fell off first move of a 7b+, lowered, then climbed the first immediately. The ‘almost-flash’. Lots of of routes in the low 7’s climbed. Building up pyramid across all lower grades.

2003

• further consolidation across trad, up to E3 onsight

• 2nd 3-month road-trip. Tried moves on first 8a. Mentally not ready - although with hindsight, more than physically capable.

2006

• Climbed at Yangshou, China.

• Onsighted first E5’s.started year-long trip after quitting Telecoms job. Started in USA in December 2007 in Utah and Nevada. Slipped off final move of ‘The Gift’ 5.12d/7c, onsight (After the crux…).

• now onsighting 99% of routes up to 7b.

• 7 7b’s in a day, Paynes Ford, New Zealand

2007

• Year-long trip, covering Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, USA. Red-pointed first grade-8 route, 8a+ in Thailand.

• climbed 7b onsight on trad at Arapiles, Australia.

2009

• started 2nd year-long trip: India, Thailand, New Zealand, USA.

• Moved to UK in September

2010

• first Font 7C

• 8a+ in UK

2012?

• 6 8a’s in 7 days in northern Spain.

• several more 8a’s

2013

• more grade 8’s

2014

• first 7c+ onsight

• one-hang on flash attempt of 8a. Redpointed, next attempt.

• several 8a’s

2019

• one move from 1st 8b in Siurana, Spain (close!)
  

And that’s a wrap, we’re back in the City after an almost six-month recharge! I’m lucky enough that I’ve put myself in the position to value time over shiny, expensive things (even if I’m still partial to experiencing shiny, expensive things: see item 3) so being able to step away from work last year, and recharge the batteries, is something I’ve been grateful for. Time to see new cultures, partake in amazing physical activities, sit in the dirt out in nature, and hang out with a range of friends is something that I’m always glad I made a choice about. So, three-plus months spent trekking around Europe and getting the opportunity to live in Siurana or two months after all these years of going there was amazing!

Still, those trips have to come to an end, and I’m grateful also be able to come to the city to see another group of friends and family, as well as take in all the delights of the city. That’s not to say it’s all rosy either - there’s definite moments of missing the space (the population of Cornudella is 1,000, whereas Dublin is 1,000,000-plus 😂). But again, taking it slow and appreciating the benefits of Dublin is the perspective.

Also, I’d forgotten how expensive it was here of course (two coffees and two croissants here is around €12 - it would have cost less than €5 in Spain!), but hey ho, you can’t win it all!

What’s been noticed since coming back?

1. Traffic is a disaster (no seriously, the city is a wreck for traffic during peak rush hour) and the government really needs to step up with proper visions for future transportation (hint: it involves micro-mobility - scooters, electric bikes - and much better buses, trams, metros).

2. Hearing from friends, the rental market is also a disaster: a reminder to all that the population of the Aran Islands is going to arrive into Dublin every month for the next thirty years according to current projections. That leads to obvious issues with there are an extra 500,000+ people in the city and how to resolve this situation! (I’m lucky enough to own my own place, but I’ve so many thoughts for anyone not in that situation).

3. Climbing? So. Many. People going indoors! Woah, the climbing gyms are jammed. The weather has been rubbish by all accounts also so most people are full-time indoor climbers for the most part. See point number 5 on my own plans here.

4. being able to go out to a show or movie, or a range of cafes is an item it’s easy to not appreciate when it’s around you all the time. Coming from a tiny village with a single cafe, it’s almost overwhelming here.

2. Sea Swims

Back in Dublin wouldn’t be right without the obligatory sea swims of course! At this time of year, the sea can only be described as, ehhh, ‘fresh’ but you sure do feel amazing after it:)

I definitely wasn’t the first to get involved in this, however, even for myself who’s only been going regularly for the past two years, it’s interesting to see just how popular it’s gotten. Sure, the obvious days like New Years Day are crazy, however, most weekends now, there’s a consistent stream of people going in, no matter what time you arrive.

For anyone interested in what’s so good about sea swims, I point you at this lovely article on the New Yorker on ‘The Subversive Joy of cold-water swimming’ to inspire you.

Other amusing asides? Arriving for one of the last sea swims of the month, totally psyched for a dip….and then realising that you’ve left all your swimming kit at home, sitting on the kitchen table. Doh!

3. Rented a Tesla (they’re wild :)

Oh, my flipping word! So, due to imminent changes on the job front, I’d set myself a goal. I used to do this regularly for items to recognise achievements as well as celebrate them: i.e. if I applied myself and got the result I wanted, I have a planned treat proposed (and I obviously don’t get if I didn’t hit the goal target: which does occur). It’s a great way of motivating yourself, by the way, as well as excellent discipline towards buying yourself shiny items. Give yourself deserved reasons and they’re even better :)

In this case, I’d committed that once a job was sorted, I’d rent an electric car, and in particular, a Tesla!

In Dublin, there’s two options for electric vehicles (correct me if I’m wrong): GoCar who have some electric vehicles that you can rent by the hour, and the company UFOdrive. With GoCar, it’s only Hyundai Kona’s and BMW i3’s, of which the latter I’m a big fan of, however they weren’t what I was looking for. UFOdrive, on the other hand, has Tesla Model 3’s, Model S’s and Hyundai Kona’s on offer. Perfecto!

I’d originally planned to go for the big daddy, and their ‘flagship’, the Tesla Model S (equivalent to an BMW 5-series, or Audi A6) until I realised one important item. When renting a Tesla, there were two criteria I wanted: bonkers acceleration (a given in them all) and autopilot. It turns out the Model S to rent in Dublin doesn’t have autopilot enabled, so it was back to the Model 3. Thankfully, on the Model 3, it turned out it did have basic autopilot enabled (albeit it didn’t have the full ‘self-driving’ mode where it can automatically overtake cars, etc.) where it can steer independently. With electric vehicles, you don’t buy on engine size as it’s usually based on battery capacity. The Tesla’s to rent are the base model (the ‘Standard Range Plus’) but they’re still amazing.

Just look at the dashboard, right (there’s no display in front of the steering wheel, everything is on the huge screen). What are they like drive?

• Quiet, with the exception of the tyre noise

• You can essentially drive it with just the accelerator pedal (as when you let off the pedal, the electric motors ‘brake’ the car to recharge the battery). That means a small learning curve for when you want to just coast in the car as wheras in a petrol/diesel you just let off the pedal and the car will roll, you can physically feel the car braking. So, you have to progressively soften on the pedal. It sounds weird, but is totally intuitive within a minute or so.

• Bonkers fast. For the people who like numbers, this is the ‘slowest’ Tesla and it still does 0-100km/hr in 5.6 seconds.

• Autopilot is….great! It’s definitely a bit of a work in progress in town where you really have to keep an eye on it, however on motorways it’s flawless and I was totally comfortable letting it drive itself (you obviously still have to pay attention and keep your hands on the wheel at all times, also as Tesla advises and the car reminds you regularly by telling you to move the wheel). In town, it was impressive to see how much it ‘saw’ pedestrians, bikes, cars, trucks, buses however, it was still a bit erratic. I’d love to have a go in one with the full self-driving feature enabled (it’s a €6500 software upgrade) but that’ll be for another time. Still, it’s great fun and I’m so psyched for when I can get a camper with this feature so that it can drive me across Europe and reduce the fatigue factor there.

• Range-anxiety is a hot topic with all electrics. This is the base Model 3 so has ‘up to 409km’. Over the course of my day, which included a bunch of acceleration demos for friends and family, I was on to get around 300-320km of range. Not bad, considering it was winter also where temperature also affects battery range. For context, Lahinch from Dublin is 260km so that’s within range without charging. They’re really viable for people now I think.

In short, if anyone wants to rent one out, reach out to me with your mobile number and I’ll send you a referral code. An aside on the cost, GoCar is around €70/day for a rental and this Model 3 to rent for the day was €140 (with comprehensive insurance, and an 300km of mileage, and free charging ). Note also, that isn’t even very expensive : a Porsche would set you back twice that, and as I’ve actually looked into, a Ferrari or Lamborghini is likely north of €1,000. Per day 😳

In short, it was a blast, and I’ll definitely be renting one again, most likely the Model 3 interestingly also as the autopilot was so good and even that model felt plenty fast :) I’ll also definitely be looking at electric cars going forward for myself as a permanent purchase.

4. Got me a climbing coach

In the worst possible English, yes, I finally stepped in to get some advice from a climbing coach. I’ve been looking for training advice since I started out in climbing: I still remember going into the gym in DCU in my second year of university to try and use weights in there. Of course, I hadn’t a clue what to do but it drove me to dig into the topic, starting off with this seminal article from the Anderson twins, Making of a Rock Prodigy and books such as Eric Horst’s Training for Climbing. Over the years, I ended up self-learning as there was no-one locally in Ireland to advise, and while abroad, I could never really make it work. Partially because I wanted to see the coach in person every once in a while! With hindsight, I probably could, and should, have made it work in that manner years ago but I’m also very glad of all the knowledge I gathered myself over the years and applied with relative success. Interestingly, there were some things I did that were largely useless and arbitrary for strength, however, training to be ‘able’ (i.e. hold for around a second, never perfectly) to do a 1-arm front lever, or one-arm 2-finger pockets, or do 35 pull-ups on a doorframe edge (although interestingly, I never got to the point of being able to one-arm hang a crimped edge), likely make me realise now that I under-achieved my potential on rock. How so? I’m way off those benchmarks these days but almost climbed my first 8b in December. Interesting….. What that really showed was there was gaps in my mental mindset, and likely some other pieces also: I’ll be factoring that into plans for this year too.

But forget about that, and back to the coach! I’m working with Rob Hunter of MyTherapyPhysio and I’ve done the one assessment, and put the foundational programme in place. Rob is now well-known in the Irish scene for, well, loads of things including his own climbing successes as well as his psyche for coaching (coaching numerous others across all standards) and passion alongside partner, Veronica, who is a brilliant physio. He also works with the team in Lattice and having used some of their programmes at the beginning of 2019 to re-introduce my body to strength training, I was keen to merge all knowledge. I’ve gone into this with a completely open mind, and very excited to be following someone else’s plan for a change. I always personally find it hard to go back indoors after an extended period of time away and on real rock, so having this plan is keeping me pushing on - I’d normally be relatively unmotivated for the first couple of months.

So, I made the drive up to their AMAZING training facility in Lisburn for an assessment. Over the course of a couple of hours, we got to work out the benchmarks and measurements to allow Rob to develop the training plan that is sitting open on my screen alongside this browser window I’m writing into. Interestingly, a couple of items stood out: I self-assessed myself for a few items after coming back in October and I’m weaker now! It would appear that the peculiarities of Siurana’s style (largely vertical to slightly overhanging, and just edge with intricate climbing) mean I’ve lost a lot of power everywhere. Fascinating and I’ll have to keep it in mind for…..

What’s the goal? Well, there’s that route out in Siurana that I tried many years ago once or twice (here’s the original post: I never did make it back), and I’d love to put some time into. It’s one of the King Lines of Siurana so putting some time into it sounds genuinely exciting! There are also a few local goals in Ireland to keep the fire burning, so looking forward to sharing some motivation with others over 2020 :) So, if you see me ignoring people at the climbing gyms, I’m not being rude: I’m just in training mode - see you for a tea/coffee/drink after to chat ;)

5. Writing Writing Writing Writing Writing

So. Much. Writing.

I’ve been head down writing loads on the blog. It would appear the motivation is back to start writing again :) To the 1,000 people who’ve read the site over the past month, thanks and as always I love to hear advice on what you think I can do to improve. You’ll see a link to contact me above, or pop me an email or a message through any means you know. Individual links are all below, however, you’ll see also see them clearly on the sports blog, and some on the tech one also.

Personally, I love to be back to writing. It allows me to reflect on what occurred, what I’ve learned and also flesh out ideas as well as get interactions from others. The writing about emissions from travelling from Ireland to Spain generated huge interest (to the point it required a follow-up post as we all interacted and learned from the information), as well as older posts suddenly getting more traffic again (unclear who linked to it, or why). What is shows is for anyone else out there who’s thinking about it, you won’t regret. By posting to your own personal webpage also, you also take control back from Facebook/Twitter, etc. and can express yourself as you please, not to mention keep a permanent record that is searchable from Google (a huge amount of traffic to the site this time came from the USA and Spain) instead of disappearing down the social network feed, never to be seen again. I’ve personally noticed also my writing is getting better again: stuff I wrote in 2019 is rough at the edges, and it’s nice to get the flow/skill back again Writing is a modern superpower that is underrated!

Sports blog:

• The most popular posts of the year: 2019

• What are the emissions for traveling from Ireland to Spain by diesel or electric vehicle?

• Ultra-running with a smartphone: why an iPhone is a great activity track for long-duration events.

• Climbing, Trail/Ultra running with an Apple Watch (i.e. how's battery life?)

• Let's Stop Judging People for Using Phones Outdoors

• Adding a solar panel, fridge, wall socket, USB sockets, lights to a Volkswagen T5 Transporter campervan

• Review: Vango Bamboo table (100cm)

• Review: Decathlon 100-metre 8.9mm rope

• Review: BetaStick EVO (2019)

• Follow-up update on the emissions calculations: what happens when multiple people travelling?

• The flywheel keeps spinning as climbing goes mainstream

• Poor levels of basic movement skills in Irish children: how to we move past this?

Tech:

• How to lose a monopoly: will regulators cause it (hint: no) or yourself?

• OECD “The operators and their future: The state of play and emerging business models”: an early 2020 review

• How big can the Apple Watch go?

• Grow Remote Dublin: pondering remote working

With that, thanks for reading as always, and any advice/feedback, let me know :)