Trying to run ...

... with a knee injury

A few months ago, in a burst of enthusiasm, I entered a ten mile race around part of the Silent Valley reservoir in the Mourne mountains. Although they’re only about a two-hour drive from where I live in Ballymoney, I’m ashamed to say that I’d never visited them before.

However, as is the way with my racing life, injury decided to intervene in the form of patellar tendonitis. At least that’s the diagnosis of one of the physios who I’ve consulted. (Whoever said that running was a cheap sport? Honestly, between physios, acupuncturists and high-end training shoes, I’ve spent a fortune trying to keep my running “career” going).

Anyway, as the race was last Saturday I had to make a decision about what to do. I could try to do the race and make the injury worse (my usual option) or I could be sensible and rest my knee. Once the physio said that I wasn’t to run “under any circumstances”, however, I knew I had to take her advice.

The next problem was telling my running buddy (yes, I do have one) who I’d persuaded to do the race with me. I was desperate not to let her down so I decided I’d just go anyway and meander round while she did the run. However, when I looked at the race website, I discovered that there were a number of other options on offer, one of which was a 10K walk. As walking isn’t a problem, I plumped for that.

So, after much discussion and debate about the state of my knee, I convinced my friend that I’d be fine doing the 10K. The two of us duly set off just before 8am on Saturday morning to make our way south to the Silent Valley. About half an hour before we arrived at the reservoir, the landscape changed and the mountains hove into view. I can tell you, it’s not called the Mourne Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for nothing.

These mountains are the highest and most dramatic range in Northern Ireland, their summits crowned by granite rock outcrops and criss-crossed by a network of paths and tracks. Made up of 12 peaks that extend into an area only 15 miles by eight (24 by 13 kilometres), each mountain rises above 600 metres which is just short of 2,000 feet.

The highest of the range is Slieve Donard (which is also the highest mountain in Northern Ireland overall) towering above the others at 820 metres or 2800 feet approximately. The name comes from the Irish “sliabh”, meaning "mountain” while Donard comes from the name of a local Christian missionary, Saint Donard or Domhanghairt in Irish.

By the time we got there, the sun was shining and the place was buzzing with runners. The heat then increased a bit more and although it was hardly what you would call Mediterranean, it was warm for August in this neck of the woods. At that point, I was glad to be walking as I really struggle with running in the heat. I think my internal thermometer isn’t set properly as it seems to rise disproportionately with every degree of increase in the outside temperature.

But whether walking or running, the scenery was stupendous. We set off along a flat tarmac path which quickly morphed into a slow incline along the side of the Silent Valley reservoir before the path levelled out again alongside the water which was literally sparkling in the sunshine.

I carried on up the path while the 10-mile runners had to turn left over the bridge before returning and following the same path as the walkers. We then had to walk or run (depending on your fitness level) up an extremely steep slope leading to the Ben Crom dam (more of that below) before returning back along the side of “The Valley” reservoir as it’s sometimes known which lies (not surprisingly perhaps) in the valley between several of the mountains.

The Silent Valley reservoir, which is owned by Northern Ireland Water, has a long history. Built by a workforce of over 1000 men between 1922 and 1932 to gather water from the Mourne Mountains, it’s still the main water supply source for most of County Down and a large part of Belfast today.

But before the reservoir could be built, the catchment area had to be defined and closed off, prompting the construction of the Mourne Wall which was built between 1904 and 1922 by order of the Belfast Water Commissioners. The reason for building the wall was to stop cattle and sheep from reaching the reservoirs and contaminating the water supply, no longer a problem today with the introduction of advanced water filtration systems.

Made from natural granite stone using traditional dry stone walling techniques, the wall is about one and a half metres high and just under a metre thick. It is an amazing 22 miles (or 35 kilometres) long and passes over the Mourne's summits, including Slieve Donard.

Although harsh mountain weather, lightning strikes and human interference has resulted in some sections falling into disrepair, a team of local stonemasons took on the job of restoring them a few years ago. Amazingly, the masons who are currently involved in the renovation all had relatives who worked on the original wall a century earlier. Thank you to The Irish Roadtrip for this information.

Because of an increase in demand for water in the 1940s, the Water Commissioners had to think again about what to do. Because of the ground condition in the valley, they decided against building a second reservoir and instead dug a tunnel through a mountain to bring more water from the Kilkeel river into Silent Valley. The Slieve Binnian Tunnel was built between 1947 and 1952, measuring seven feet by eight feet (2.1 metres by 2.4 metres) and nearly two and a quarter (3.6 kilometres) long.

Built in an era when there was no high-tech equipment (the men used candles to see what they were doing), the two work squads which started at each end were only inches apart when they met in the middle, nearly 800 metres under the roof of the mountain.

But demand for water kept on growing and in the 1950s there was further development of the Upper Kilkeel River and its tributaries in the High Mournes. This was done by adding an extra reservoir high in the mountains beneath Ben Crom. This work took place between 1953 and 1957 as the final part of the Mourne scheme to provide water to Belfast. This dam is built of concrete, unlike the earth and rock dam of Silent Valley.

I have to admit that I was blissfully unaware of all this history around me whilst I was doing my 10K walk. It was only when I came to write this blog that I realised I had walked across or alongside so many amazing feats of engineering.

Although I managed to do the walk without any major mishaps, my knee is still giving me problems which is a pain (literally) as I have a couple more runs coming up. One is a 10K next Sunday in Carrickfergus which is just north of Belfast and the other is a half marathon in Essex at the beginning of September.

As I want to be fit enough to do the half marathon, I’m thinking of bypassing Sunday’s run and resting my knee. Although I’m not generally known for being sensible (at least not where running is concerned), perhaps I’m starting to grow wiser with age. I’ve heard it said that that happens. I just never thought it would happen to me.