Dungarvan 10
mile 2014. Week ending 26th January
I will come
to the above later but the running was going well. Monday was the usual 4 mile
recovery jog thankfully showing no reaction to the 17 mile run the day before.
Tuesday was a planned 8 mile run with 7 miles at a fast pace. Very happy with
how this went running 8 miles in 59.50 minute. My first run in this range since
last May. I felt i was finally turning a corner and this was confirmed on
Wednesday running 8 miles at what was meant to be a relaxed pace. I was happy
to see I ran the 8 miles in 1hr05mins24mins. Hr was 148, again all very
positive. Work commitments meant a day off on Thursday and Friday from the
running and I used Saturday to get that stiffness out of my legs.
Headed down
to Dungarvan via Mallow. I offered my club mate Tony a lift. He told me later
had I not offered him a lift he wouldn’t have ran the race.I was glad of the
company.
Down at the
race start line I bumped into the usual familiar faces. I had hoped to get in
under 75 minutes, perhaps at a push get under 73 minutes. This was my first
race since last July and while training was going solidly enough I knew racing
was the best way to improve my running.
The heavens opened
up the first 2 miles and I was a bit dismayed to find myself stuck behind the
80 minute pacers. However by mile 3 the field had separated out and I was glad
to get moving. The 75 minute pacers were in front of me at this point and I was
feeling very strong. The splits for the first 4 miles were 7.57,7.45,7.20,
7.03. I was wondering if I had started closer up the field maybe i would have
been in a better place timewise. Anyway it couldn’t be helped now.
Tony was
over my shoulder all the time and we hit mile 5 in 7.13. At this stage we were
level with the 75 minute pacers and it was time to push on. Mile 6 was 6.57 and
I was feeling hopeful of getting close to 72 minutes. Tony overtook me at mile
7 and was flying ,all the more impressive when you consider he only ran his
first 10 miles in training last week.
After a nice stretch of the course in mile 7
and mile 8 I was recalling how crappy I felt this time last year. At the very
worst I was going to get a course PB. I didn’t feel in the least bit under
pressure, were this a half marathon I would have been doing well but 10 milers
are harder faster affairs. It was time to press on hitting mile 8 and mile 9 in
7.00 and 7.14. The breeze had knocked me back a bit at this stage and I think
my lack of race time cost me here.
By mile 10 I crossed the line in a clock time
of 1.12.53 which meant a second half split of 35.23. I was happy enough
crossing the line. I state happy rather then chuffed, after all I didn’t come
close to PB’ing (1hr09mins53secs) but it was a good solid time. Still though
lots of work to be done.
A lot of the
guys from the club did very well but hats off to my cousin, Don Ryan, who took 4 or 5 minutes
of his PB time to finish in 1hr07mins24seconds. Serious running. Amazing what a good diet can do ;-)
What now?
Forget about races for a while and get back to the marathon slog...............
35 miles
this week, a cutback week. Monday 4 miles, Tuesday 8 miles, Wednesday 8 miles,
Saturday 4 miles, Sunday 10 mile race with 1 mile warm up.