Peter Coyle - Home in under 15!

Congratulations to Peter Coyle who romped home on a Mourne 500 round in 14 hours and 57 minutes on Friday 18th June.  Peter's excellent report below.


I had the Mourne 500s in the back of my mind after finishing Cassies with Kevin Murdock at the end of April. And so, after seeing a favourable forecast, I made the snap decision to contact Rowan from Primal tracking on a Monday morning and asked him if he could get me a tracker ready for Friday morning with a 4am start.

My wife Leigh drove me up to Ott carpark and as I got ready to leave, we watched the beautiful dawn colours break through in the East on what promised to be a good day. As soon as I headed up the side of Slievenamuck any pre-run anxiety immediately lifted and I settled into finding a steady rhythm, happy to be on my way. It was a fantastic morning. Leigh was waiting at Spelga for a final good luck as I passed by.

Some low-lying cloud on Cock moved to the south just as I arrived on the summit where I met a guy by the name of Brian from the US who said he was doing Cassies.I had seen a winking headlight on the side of Miskin as we drove up to Ott car park and wondered who it might be. We exchanged very brief good luck to one another at the Col and headed in opposite directions, as I moved on towards Pidgeon. A magical sunrise appeared as I climbed upwards just before entering heavy cloud on Pidgeon, which remained until the highest point on the Plain of Finlieve. As soon as I was in the cloud, it got colder, and I had no concept of it being morning time any more. I had to take a bearing to Pidgeon south happy to see the summit cairn appear from the cloud and then turned back to the handrail of the wall. I took another bearing from Shanlieve and headed out over the tricky ground towards Finlieve. I had been up there a couple of weeks prior in zero visibility and wasn’t concerned about finding my way, just that it would slow me down a lot, navigating on my own through the hags. Then, like a gift, about 3/4 way across, I came out through the cloud to brilliant morning sunshine and a clear view of Finlieve, Sliabh Martin and the Cooley’s beyond. From the summit, I then pushed on down across the heavy ground of the Red Bog and picked up the trail along the Red Moss river where I stopped at the junction with the fence to refill my water flasks.

It would be a purer and more aesthetically pleasing route from the top of Sandy Brae to Binnian to avoid the road and I had looked at crossing to it via Sliabhnagore but some of the route I looked at crosses private land and so I decided to go the 4 miles stretch along the road. As I approached and looking over at Binnian, I made the decision to take a direct line up Binnian East instead of going up the gulley towards the style. Just below the summit, I spotted a hare!!!! We both stood still looking at one another and then it scampered off over the steep heavy ground. It was a great sight and lifted me as I was starting to feel my first low of the day.

After 5 hours on the move, and with my energy levels dipping, I made the deliberate decision to make myself sit down on the style before Binnian summit for 3/4 minutes to regroup and get some food into me.

Up over Binnian, I then followed the familiar path to Rocky in a fresh Northerly wind which was cool enough to make me stop and pull on my gilet. By the time I got to Rocky, I knew I was keeping a consistently steady pace and was hoping that I hadn’t gone out too hard early on. The wind died off and the clouds cleared and suddenly it felt a lot warmer as I climbed up through the deep heather to Spences. I stopped for another 3 to 4 minutes on the top of Chimney to refuel as my energy levels dipped again and knowing I had some rough ground to cover to Crossone and Donard. On the way across, I stopped to refill my flasks again in the Bloody water river. I just focused on keeping a steady rhythm on the climb from Crossone to Donard picking my way up across the scree. It’s steep ground but the saving grace is that the southeast side of Donard has no false summits and I was suddenly popped out at the top to a large group of people sitting down having lunch and taking photos. I’m not sure what I looked like as I just appeared and pushed on over the style and headed down.

It was just after 1pm and I had been moving for 9 hours. The afternoon was now windless and it was warm.  The route onwards was straight forward and familiar and leaving Shanlieve, and feeling good, I made a conscious and deliberate decision to push on as hard as I could. The day had developed its own momentum and even though I was tired with the early start and time on my feet, I knew I was going well and I just concentrated on picking off the summits as quickly as I could and on pressing forward at a steady and consistent pace. The afternoon was hot and I focused on staying hydrated but was finding it difficult to take solid food at this stage. I reached Loughshannagh summit in just over 12 hours and I began to consider the possibility of a sub 15 hour finish and this drove me on although I knew it would be very tight. Crossing to Ben Crum and over to Doan across the river was hard going through the heather and long grasses and the heat of the day, the only relief being a short stop to refill my flasks for the last time at the Ben Crum river and quickly wash off my face. Leaving Doan, I rewarded myself with a full flask of coke that I had saved all day for the final stretch, and I was happy to be running again on a bone dry track which was much easier going over to the wall to Carn.  From the wall, the view of the mountains out to the East was spectacular. I couldn’t has asked for better conditions. And now I was chasing a time.

From Muck the south summit appeared a fair way off. I hadn’t been out there for some time but the route ahead was clear and runnable, however I made what could have proved to be a very costly mistake of going further then the South Summit to a lesser distinctive point further south again which cost me some extra minutes. I hadn’t recced the section and looking back I can only think that it was my tired condition and eagerness to push on that prevented me from simply pulling out my map to clarify the issue.  Running back to the South Summit, I knew I had made an error but there was nothing for it than to keep moving onwards and when I got back up to the summit of Muck, I had 30 minutes or so to get to the finish. It was a clear, warm, windless evening in brilliant sunshine as I crossed the style and set off to Ott as fast as my weary legs would carry me and while I was suffering badly, I knew that regardless of the time, I had had a fantastic day out in the mountains and was nearing the end. The icing on the cake of course would be if I could get in under the 15 hours. And so, I just ran. How stupid it would be to roll an ankle at this late stage.  The boggy ground and long grass between Carn and Ott slowed me up but back on the well-worn path, I managed to run/walk to the summit of Ott and checking my watch saw that I had 10 minutes to go and knew I was nearly done. Just as I crossed the fence onto the road, I heard a horn of a car behind me. With perfect timing it was Leigh and my daughter Lorelei who had come to see me in. With 14hours 57mins on the clock after I had started out, I was finished. I had just made it. I crashed out on the grass, both shattered and very content at the same time.While I would have been happy to linger,within minutes the midges descended and before I knew it, I was lying in the back of the car heading down past Spelga and the Newtown road to Warrenpoint looking over at the peaks that I had crossed earlier that morning. It had been a great day.

Thanks Leigh as always.

Peter Coyle.

Sunrise on Pigeon