Many congratulations to Shane Scully, who finished in first place at Gaelforce West on June 22nd.
this is how it went with gaelforce west…
having done gaelforce west in 2017 we didn’t feel the need to go and reconnoiter the course. that year, I came in third, but I made so many mistakes on the course that I felt like I didn’t perform at the level I should have. the route is quite long and demanding, if you don’t have the work done they will find you somewhere. On the way to Westport on a Friday night, we were pretty relaxed. we knew we were in better shape overall this year (even with gary’s injury) and were hoping for a decent result. last time we were in this race we were very unknown but this time we were tagged as favorites for the race on kayathlon.ie. the pressure was on!
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The tactic of the race was for us both to get into the bike section with the leaders and then try to work with them if possible and get a lead before croagh patrick. no matter what we lost in the run-kayak-race section before the first bike, we were confident we could work together to get the guys up front back on the bike. therefore, the beginning was always going to be relaxed without the need to panic.
gaelforce west start line at glassilaun beach
register and start at gaelforce west
we got to westport pretty late on a friday night and after checking in and doing a slow 4km run around town to loosen up our legs (legs felt decent), we slept early enough. we got up at 5:00 in the morning to catch a bus at 6:00 to take us to the starting line. I got off the bus just in time and soon we were on our way to glassilaun beach to start. luckily the weather was fine as we didn’t bring any old clothes to put on while we waited for the race to start. Early on we met fellow club member and Gaelforce veteran, James Skehan, who gave us the usual briefing on what to expect. james had little to no race training for this so i don’t know how he gets to the line every year. he is a braver man than me.
gaelforce west 1st race along famine road
first run down the famine trail
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we were competing against some of the biggest names in ireland sport for the first time here, like shaun stewart and dessie duffy, so it would be interesting to see what their strengths and weaknesses were. i asked luke mcmullan what shaun’s weaknesses were, to which he replied ‘he doesn’t have any, he’s good at everything’. well fuck that anyway. the race started at a good steady race pace. we were running upwind so we were all lined up one behind the other with a group of about 8 of us getting a gap pretty quickly. in that group was me, gary, luke, barry, seb, dessie, shaun and peter, pretty much every guy mentioned in the pre-race guide. we all stayed together until the off road section where everything fell apart. i had to push too hard too soon to stay with luke, barry and shaun in front so i slowed down and lowered my heart rate and ran with bro for the rest of the first race. As the technical race on the old famine road continued, the two of us continued to lose time. once we got back to a better road surface we were able to accelerate again and close the gap to the front runners a bit, passing out seb and dessie in the process. Gary’s breathing sounded a little heavier than I would have liked, so he wasn’t sure if it was going to be his day. if he had a rib injury, he wouldn’t even have participated. the first race was over after 56 minutes and we were just over 1 minute behind the gang of 3 at the front. we are happy with this as it was much faster than in 2017.
kayaking the killary fjord
into the kayaks and disaster immediately hits gary as his hips lock. she wasn’t going anywhere fast and couldn’t sit properly in the kayak. after several tries, he got going, but again had to lean back in the kayak and try to paddle from there. that was his race for the top spots as he lost 5 minutes with me on the 10 minute kayak traverse of killary fjord. actually i had a pretty decent kayak, i caught luke and came up not far behind barry. this was lucky for me as my cycling buddy was gone and with shaun bombing the kayak i would have to recruit new buddies to help chase him down, luke was kind enough to oblige and we ran the second race together picking up barry right out of the transition.
1st loop through sheeffry pass
The 3 of us started behind shaun, who had a decent gap. however there was no panic as we were biking into a headwind so the longer we left shaun alone the more tired he would get as we had breaks while we worked together to lure him in. as we got closer i asked the guys to leave shaun alone while we gently pedaled behind. the big climb of the day was coming up and it was probably the best place to try to jump the favorite before the race. i told luke i was planning on jumping out and hitting my wheel. we caught shaun at the bottom of the climb and the race blew up from there, literally. Barry’s tire blew out with force and his race was over.
I went down to 3 and put the pace on the climb. shaun was on my wheel and luke was on his, but first luke lost contact and then shaun lost contact. I didn’t want to go any further as I didn’t want to be alone up front with the two guys working together to draw me in so I encouraged shaun to keep pushing and eased the pace up front. he was struggling a bit on the way up so I told him he was pushing and I’d meet him again after the descent. It was a tricky enough descent, so having a small gap to allow me to take it a little easier was good for me. at the bottom i took a quick look at shaun but there was no sign so i put my head down and decided to go solo. This was a risky move as I was completely sure that the two guys (both good cyclists) would save energy by working together to Croagh Patrick’s foot and reach me in just a few seconds. I was unaware that Shaun had crashed (breaking his collarbone) on one of the tricky turns near the top of the climb and Luke had shown great sportsmanship by stopping to help. luckily the ambulance was nearby.
The rest of the cycle went well. I was keeping a good pace, but from time to time my calves would look crampy. I was clearly dehydrated and only had a small bottle of water with me, so there was little I could do about it. the loop ended with a tricky off-road section. This isn’t usually my forte, but when you think you’re being chased by two big competitors, you forget how risky what you’re doing is. going into transition, at the end of the bike, I had a huge lead, but again, I didn’t know it. seb and dessie had overtaken luke, who was now in fourth place.
climbing croagh patrick
Starting the race they gave me strict instructions to take the road up the mountain but the last time we did this race in 2017 they said the same thing but all the top guys ignored that and took the short cut up the mountain. mountain. I was sure that the rest would ignore this advice and I would be the only fool doing the correct route. Cursing myself, I headed for the diagonal path and the slower path up the mountain. thank goodness i did as they had indeed cracked down on this rule and were dqing those who strayed from the path. how do i know this? – Gary got dq’d getting out of the way! obviously he was thinking the same thing as me. lucky for me i stuck to the rules. even as i walked up the mountain, i expected to see shaun and luke now ahead of me. I had resigned myself in my head to having to chase them down on the final bike. I kept running trying to close this imaginary gap that had developed only in my head.
When I got to the shoulder dib, they told me I was in the lead and had a decent lead. happy Days! I could relax a little again, but not much. in 2017, I was way ahead at the top of the mountain, but I had a horrible descent and lost a huge amount of time. with experienced guys on my tail, I was bound to get caught (or so I told myself). I got to the top and it was only when I turned around that I could see that the gap I had was very big. There was no one in sight. I decided to try descending on the loose shale because I had heard that was the right thing to do. it was fun but felt more like a controlled fall. I certainly need a lot more practice on that. the good thing was that it took me a long time to descend before I found myself with the boys chasing me. for the first time i started to think i might as well have won this. the only problem was i didn’t see shaun, where was he? I figured I just missed it because I was focusing so much on my balance. maybe he wasn’t far behind and with his descent abilities he would surely catch up with me. if I did, I’d at least have one final shootout with him on the bike.
I descended the mountain much better than two years ago. having actual trail runners helped a lot instead of the flat ones I used last time. i met gary on the descent. she was well back and he informed me of his mishap in the kayak. at least she was still going and had a remote chance of catching up with the guys up front and moving up into the top 10. On my way up the mountain, the guys I passed were telling me I had a big lead, so I slowed down a bit. bit and made sure it went down safely.
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shane scully – first to the finish line at gaelforce west 2019
final loop to westport
now only the last bike was left. this normally wouldn’t be a problem, but the cramps he was having earlier on the bike came back with a vengeance on the way back to westport. my quads, calves and hips were trying to cramp and now that I was out of water, it was just a matter of surviving the final cycle. I relaxed enough not to go into a full-on cramp, but every 20 revolutions of the pedal or so I felt a muscle looking to burst. there was a tailwind on the final leg of the bike so this helped me a lot. it was over in just 20 minutes and I made it to the final transition a lucky man. a total cramp on the bike could have been the disaster that ended my career. I figured my timing must have been pretty quick since no one seemed to have expected me to be there. I just dibbed and finished. my final time was 3 hours 23 minutes; this was a very fast time, but as it is a new course (the final technical cycle by the skelp had been replaced), it is difficult to compare with previous years.
gaelforce west finale in westport
standing at the end. I was surprised to see that the minutes were ticking by and none of the boys had finished yet. I went to rub and still time passed without anyone finishing. then i heard seb announced closely followed by dessie. where was sean? Next house was Luke, who proceeded to fill me in on what had happened to them at Sheffrey’s Pass. it was a shame to hear what had happened as no one wants to win in those circumstances and it definitely took the sweetness out of victory. it’s hard to say how the race would have gone if shaun hadn’t fallen and luke hadn’t stopped for him. the end of that story will be told in a different race in the future. For now, I’m happy I got the win and didn’t have any major setbacks along the way.
gary finished the race in fifth place, just ahead of a legend of the sport, peter o’farrell, but as i mentioned earlier, he was sacked due to the croagh patrick incident. It’s understandable why he took the shortcut, but it’s also understandable why he was disqualified. no complaints from us. he will know better the next day. All in all it was another great experience. Thanks to everyone who organized the race!
well done again shane and thanks for sharing this brilliant race report with us. If you’re getting ready to go after reading this, Gaelforce West 2020 is calling you. sign up for gaelforce west 2020!
more race reports
– gaelforce west 2018 – a view from the front – shane santélyon 80km race report – jerome bletterie – gaelforce west ultra race report
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