Ep 9 with Ireland´s No. 1 mountain runner over the shorter distances, Zak Hanna

Welcome to episode 9 of Trail Running Ireland. The show is hosted by Eoin Flynn, UTMB Finish Line Race Announcer and 10 times Irish International Mountain Runner.

First up, Eoin chats to Richard Nunan, Secretary of the Irish Mountain Running Association. Richard is at the Trial Race for the World Mountain Running Championships Long Distance event. The race took place on a scorcher of a day at the Ballyhoura Peak Marathon in Limerick and it included a few surprise comeback performances.

(15m00s) Our expert trail running coach Rene Borg is back this episode and takes a deep dive into one of the most important training sessions you can do as we prepare to get racing; the “long run”. One of our key questions, does it always need to be done on a Sunday!?

Rene can be contacted at www.runningcoach.ie

(36m00s) For our feature interview, we speak with Salomon Running athlete Zak Hanna, the star of Irish Mountain Running over the shorter courses over the last few years. Zak talks to us about:

· His recent back to back stunning performances against some of the best runners in Europe in the mountains of northern Italy and how he recovered from one race to the next within less then 24 hours.

· How the trip went given the current covid-19 climate and how racing itself was affected.

· How he turned a bad situation positive and lived like a pro-athlete for the last few months.

· His thoughts on trying to become a professional runner

· Some great tips for anyone new to the sport

· His drive and ambition to keep on getting better and stronger.

A big thank you to our show sponsor, EcoTrail Wicklow, taking place on Sept 26th 2020.

https://wicklow.ecotrail.com/

Finally, a special thanks to Basic Needs with Trail runner Shane O´Mahony from Cork on drums, for our very cool soundtrack.

Get your running gear on, let´s go!