Eco Trail Wicklow 80k 2025

Eco trail 9 hours 29

When I first started running trails, all I ever wanted was an Eco Trail time of under 10 hours. All the calculators online, and books you read and stories you heard said that you could do it. However, the reality of trail running is not always clear.

• 2019 - 1st Wicklow Ecotrail 80 - DNF

• 2021 - 2nd Wicklow Ecotrail 80k - 11 hours 14

• 2025 - 3rd Wicklow Ecotrail 80k - 9 hours 29

The differences with road numbers versus trail is that mountains and course always beats you. It it is your job to make that beating a small as possible. The course always kicks you, just let is kick a little less. And today we managed to have a race where the second half of the race was better than than first

How did the day go?

We knew that rain was coming. It was inevitable. And a little wind. But oh boy did the weather ask questions.

Start > Great Sugar Loaf 14k

I went off with the front 20 as Ben has been telling me to go with him all week, and I was like… I could do this, but it would probably cause a slower second half. I went with him on the Bray climb, but listened to body and very quickly sat back on the climb and slowed down and welcomed everyone to pass me. I had an effort level I was dialled into, and I felt the runners around me where working correctly, or above effort by listening to breathing. Note for me always… first 10k of your race, dont be the loudest guy in the pack :)

I still was in my t-shirt up until this point because the rain was light but I was feeling warm and I didn't want to put my wet jacket on. Also this was going to be the first race that I was going to run with my bag under my jacket and put the jacket over the bag because in the last couple of runs I have been trying this out and I've been finding that the Brooks jacket I'm wearing ventilates better when the backpack is over the jacket. 

By the time hitting the first aid station, the weather felt quite cool, I hadn't drank much fluid, so I just topped up the top of my bottles, which helped to further dilute the nutrition that I had in my bowels.

Sugarloaf > Lough Tay out 29k (14-29k)

On the journey out to the first 14k, I was near some of the runners that I work with, Cathal and Caleb, and they both had passed me on the way towards the Great Sugarloaf as I had decided ease up my overall effort, but I met Cathal again on the road between the Sugarloaf and Powerscourt, and we shared a bit of chatting and a bit of discussion, and we were both in great spirits, so it was really nice to have a nice chat about two hours into the race. 

I know this section quite well, so the road part was nice and easy to run, to say quite relaxed, because I knew coming from Calary car park and doing the descent down to Powerscore waterfall can be a little bit technical and a little bit hard if you're running too quickly, and this wasn't the part of the race to run quickly. 

Then going past Powerscourt waterfall, I think here is when I put my rain jacket on fully and started to make my way down the road, and then into the tight left-hand turn to the real horrible incline that brings you up to the zigzags going up by crumb. And now you slowly start to see and feel what the weather is going to be like on the top of Djouce today, and I think this naturally slowed a lot of people around because they felt like, do you know what, how hard do I want to work this early and get this wet going up this climb? 

There was the descent down to the Dargle dip that I felt quite comfortable to run on, so I really enjoyed that downhill, and then we made the long hike up to Douce. There was a little bit of running, and I had planned originally to run a lot more of the Djouce climb, but with the weather and with feeling like I was getting quite wet, I decided to hike, and then everyone in front of me and behind me almost all held the same position, so I thought there's no point being a hero on this part of the run. 

When I finally got to the Lough Tay , I was a little bit more comfortable, and I was able to run a lot more of the Jettis descent. There's no point being a hero on this part of the run. When I finally got to the Loch Teh aid station, I realized because the weather was so wet, I probably hadn't been taking on all the nutrition that I wanted, so I didn't feel like I needed to stop there, and I knew from looking at the details beforehand that the next aid station was going to be the Vartry Trail car park aid station, so I decided to skip the Loch Teh one and just continue on.

Tay > Vartry out 33k

Knowing that between here and the next station is quite short and I had no problem running then this section down to Barnetree and I quite enjoyed the road section where again I picked up a couple of places of people who are conserving themselves on the road. Also again seeing people at the aid station at TA stopping always gives you a bit of confidence when you feel confident to move to an aid station while other people are stopping to chat and to eat a snack.

Vartry Out > Vartry return 40k

I arrived into Vartry and I saw the aid station was quite full with people and when I just double checked the food that I had in my bag I knew that actually I had a demand of food that I planned to eat before I hit 40k. So I made the call not to stop again at the Vartry aid station (but I did on the 2nd time to you hit Vartry) and to continue on on the course. There were a couple of guys who I was following and chasing and they had decided to stop and when I seen them stopping their pack up stuff I thought okay here's an opportunity just to move ahead of a couple of people in the race. 

I went straight on to the Vartry course but then I did walk the first 30 seconds of it just to double check what food I had eaten, what food I had not eaten, and then plan to say okay on this more easier part of the route to run let's try and take on more food and get through the nutritional guide that you had given yourself. I have started this years to review what I have eat based on carb count, so that I can have an interval idea of things like 4 hours in and I have consumed 360g of carbs.

Then we got back into the Vartry return Aid Station, this is where I decided that I need to make a couple of decisions here to make sure I'm going to feel good. So I went over to theaid table, I took my jacket off, I took my food out, I readjusted myself. I had brought myself six scoops extra of Altar Nutrition, which I had in a bag, and I put this into my bottles and I filled these up. And the reason that I did this was that I think sometimes when the weather is wet, getting into gel-based nutrition can be annoying, but the fact that I was able to top up with the water-based nutrition and have about 71 grams of carbs in each bottle really felt like, okay, if I can keep this water in and keep this going to get back to the Great Sugar Loaf, I'll be in a really good position to make sure that I'm at least managing a certain amount of the carb load. 

And then I made the last-minute decision before the race started to pack a spare t-shirt. I took my wet t-shirt off that was wet mostly because of sweat and maybe a little bit of the loose rain getting in. I put the fresh t-shirt on, and actually putting that fresh t-shirt on gave me a new lease of life, and it actually made me feel like I was really starting the race at this point. The new t-shirt was unbelievable, and even though you're carrying a little bit of extra gear and putting a wet t-shirt in your bag (also packed in a dry bag), it doesn't matter because that wet t-shirt is either going to be on your body or in your bag, and once I put this on, I felt absolutely amazing and was ready to go.

I also think this is the part of the race where I already settled into the race and from this point on I believe I was not passed by any other runners in the race and this is when I only started to hunt people and to pass people. I had this loose idea of somehow trying to finish around nine hours and at some point um on the attack back I had predicted myself to be back around nine hours ten nine hours five but just with the weather and the fact that the um it just wasn't coming together completely and I decided that I'm just going to keep going for the nine hours and then we'll see what happens on the rest of the route.

Vartry return 40k > Lough Tay return 51k > Sugar loaf

Part of this course I wasn't so familiar with, which is going to be Vartry back into Ballinastoe Woods, but here is where I was with a couple of runners, and a lot of the runners around me were trying to make little mini attacks to get themselves back into position and not to let this part of the course defeat you. 

I think from 40 to 60k in an 80k race is probably one of the most important parts of the race because you don't want to sit back too much to lose time, but you also don't want to go too hard because you need to make sure that you have something in the body for the last 20k. I was slowly catching and talking to some people, and catching and talking to some people, and I was on a run-walk strategy, and at this point it was less about time and more about finding someone ahead of me and passing them, finding someone ahead of me and passing them, and I managed to do this. Now that I recall what I said earlier, a couple of runners did pass me a few times, but I believe I re-passed all these other runners later on into the race. 

Again I skipped the Lough Tay aid station because I had everything I needed, and again I seen runners who were ahead of me and thought, okay they've stopped here, here's another opportunity to gain some time, and let's just skip this here and move on.

Probably my most favourite part of this route is when you get to the stiles at Djouce and then you start to make your way down the long long descent that will bring you almost back to the woods just below Calary Car Park. I was looking forward to this part all day and I decided that anyone I could see ahead of me I would try to pass them and around here on the climb one runner did pass me but then I managed to retake this runner again on the descent and I managed to pass two or three people on this descent so that was unbelievable however just as I was getting ready to prepare to take on the descent my hamstring cramped I had to stop for five seconds to stretch it and the same thing happened again about three minutes later I had to stretch it give it a proper good stretch and a little quick rub on the hill and I managed to ease out and that was okay. Here also is the area where I managed to catch Caleb on the climb before we made the descent and he ended up finishing under 10 hours which was ahead of his goal expectation for the day.

I actually was surprised how well the long descent went from Djouce to the Calary car park. I was feeling unbelievably great. My heart rate was looking really low and I was managing to pass some runners on the long downhill and I really felt like everything was working together. The heavy, heavy carb load that I put in the two days prior was really paying off here because I was seeing runners ahead of me who were still running well and looking like they were running well but it looked like they didn't have that other gear to want to run the sections you could run harder as hard as they wanted to.

Getting back to Great Sugarloaf was great because I managed to ascend the Calary Car Park at a nice strong hike. I seen one runner ahead of me and we had a little battle back and forth up into the Great Sugarloaf where I had passed him but then he decided to put the foot down and read past me. We both stopped at the same aid station and at this point, and actually I forgot to say at the same point in Vartry, I decided to abandon a couple of gels that I had planned to take and swap them for bananas. 

Sugarloaf aid station

So I had two cold bananas in Vartry and two cold bananas in the Great Sugarloaf. I put them into my pocket and they were a real nice boost. And I think that the cold banana and the fact they were natural foods really, really helped me and instead of completing the gel intakes I wanted to take, the bananas were a great substitute on the spot. Always know the carbohydrate breakdown of what natural fruit is versus gels and then you can make adjustments. 

On the way up to the Great Sugarloaf I partial run/walkied this because I noticed there was a couple of runners ahead of me and then you get to take that right hand turn into what's usually a firm, hard, fun descent but oh my god, the mud down there was absolutely terrible and sometimes I have a bit of trouble going downhill quickly but then I seen three runners ahead of me and I thought they're probably in a different race but then very slightly you could just see from the side of one of the guys shorts, you could see that lovely red bib that again reminded you, aha, they're in the 80k. So I decided to work hard going down that hill to catch those runners. 

Again, just to give me a boost, sometimes catching a runner is just your own psychological thing that helps you strategically figure out how you're doing on that run.

Belmont 72k

Again another aid station skipped. Looking back I skipped most aid stations, and only the 40k aid station I spent about 6 minutes filling new bottles, getting near gear on, and getting ready to go. Usually I wouldn’t recommend this, but I knew that I had everything I needed on me. I started the day with about 750-830 grams of carbs on me, and 15 sodium tablets. And the aid stations where gonna be mostly for water. If yesterday was a sunny hot day, I would have used them more.

From here I started passing some more runners, one guy on the flat who was on the poles, and another guy I could see far off in the distance who could notice that his legs had gone. If these 2 guys were not on the course I would have finished over 9 hours 30 so I welcomed them as markers.

Also, I wouldn’t say that I am not the most competitive battler of racing people in ultras. I am not. I want everyone to have a great day, because the more runners around you working well, the better your time is going to be. But there is a natural magic sauce of being able to pass a runner who has been possibly ahead of you for 75km, in a 80km race.

Lessons for this race.

• I went aggressive on carb load 48 hours out.

• Sodium tablets are better for me then chews (you need to eating chew more often)

• Nutrition went very well, and when the weather got crap, moved nutrition to pocket shorts to easier access

• Spare t-shirt was a miracle

• A full stop at an aid station to adjust all gear cost me nothing, gained me everything.

• Changing from Plan A to Plan B 15 minutes into race was absolutely fine (however my watch still hold me that I was in or around 9 hour goal all day

• Splitting my nutrition plan into 4 quarters is easy for my brain (I had 4 bags with 4 plans - ignore last bag for fruit last 2 hours

• Used a playlist of 5 songs on repeat for last 3 hours for momentum

• Don’t need poles for this race

Things I could have done better

• I could have went a little stronger on downhills early to push myself up where other runs could have dragged me - But higher risk

• If the temperature dropped a little more, and rain held of longer. I could have packed a 2nd rain jacket. Yes, this would have increased weight, but on that course I think it would have been smart.