For pride and glory of the school

DIARY OF A SCHOOLS' ATHLETICS REPORTER:There's more cold than gold, but nothing restores your faith in athletics like a schools' cross country event

WE WERE ankle deep in mud, huddled together against the bitter sting of the icy wind, our faces numbed from the cold. We were shivering and hungry. All around us were sickly-looking teenagers, many weeping openly, for no apparent reason.

Others were wandering around deliriously, too lonesome to even cry. Some were propped up against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, and limping towards some shelter, any kind of shelter. One of them had blood dripping from a leg wound, which mixed into a bright red stain on the dark mud.

"There must be some way out of here . . ."

This is not the diary of a war reporter, somewhere from the battlefields of Ardennes in the winter of 1944. This is my diary from the fields of Dartfield Equestrian Centre, just outside Loughrea in Galway - the venue for last Saturday's Irish Schools' Cross Country championships.

It resembled a war zone at times, but that's cross country running for you. Torrential overnight rain had turned the course into a watery mud bath. There was a desperate arctic wind, which no matter what way you turned was blowing in your face.

At least no one was shooting at us.

They tell me Beijing is going to be viciously hot and steamy next August, and I can't wait. The Olympics will be a paid vacation compared to the Irish Schools' Cross Country. Of all the events on the athletics calendar this is the one that tests all my journalistic skills. It's also the one I get most nervous about, and most emotional about too.

Twenty years ago I ran the event myself, and won't ever forget it. The venue was St Augustine's College in Dungarvan and I finished 19th in the intermediate boys. And I was devastated. I expected a lot better, but that race taught me that nothing comes easy in distance running. The resulting philosophy has aged perfectly, which is to say not at all.

It takes a tough kid to run cross country, and when it comes to school sports, these are tougher than the rest. So while us reporters cursed and raged at the conditions last Saturday, these kids tore into the mud and wind and exhausting terrain, gloriously oblivious and determined.

Because they were running for themselves and for their school. Because they had trained for months and done very well just to qualify. Because they had guts.

Not all of them crossed the finish line looking better off for the experience, but there's no doubt they'll have learnt from it. We're living in an increasingly soft and flabby society, and the Irish Schools Cross Country is one of the last exceptions.

How many kids do you know would be familiar with the Nietzsche aphorism, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger"? These kids will know all about it.

Dartfield Equestrian Centre is a fine venue, its wide open spaces and undulating terrain well-suited for cross country, although on a day like this it would be a lot easier to get around on horseback.

There isn't a dry patch anywhere, and us reporters were hopelessly unprepared. My colleague from Irish Runner magazine, Frank Greally, had managed to bribe a pair of Wellington boots off some local farmer, but my retro Nikes in flame-red were destroyed, forever.

I at least came armed with three pens, usually an ample supply. But the ink in each of them soon froze, and I ended up trying to make a sort of imprint of first names on my programme, and repeatedly recited any decent quote I got so as not to forget it.

That's one of the great fears of covering the Irish Schools Cross Country, that you'll get a name wrong. I know what that means: Tears, then anger. I still have some newspapers clippings at home, measuring two inches by an inch, with that priceless text - I O'Riordan (DLS Churchtown).

On one occasion this appeared as: I O'Reardon. I was ready to hunt down this cruel violator, until my dad tried to explain it was probably rang in to the copytakers, and therefore misspelled by the newspaper. I didn't believe him until he admitted he was one who actually rang it in.

These days, of course, we have satellite laptops, not that they make the job any easier. As if getting all the names correct wasn't hassle enough, two of the races last Saturday were won by twins: Patrick Monaghan from St Coleman's, Newry won the junior boys race, just ahead of twin brother Andrew, and Charlotte ffrench-O'Carroll won the senior girls race, just ahead of twin sister Rebecca.

At least I think that was the order they finished, but only their mothers could have definitely separated them, and remember our faces were numbed by the cold, so we couldn't actually ask which was which.

One of the reasons I ended up in journalism in the first place was because I realised I could come to an event like this, and actually get paid for it. I could say the same about the Olympics and World Championships, but nothing renews my faith in athletics like a day at the Irish Schools Cross Country.

More than that, I return home and write in happy innocence, without the slightest twinge of conscience, words like "brilliant" and "unbelievable" and not wonder to myself "but what are they on?"