Charleville half marathon 2014

Week ending 21^st September

As the time gets closer to the taper the tougher the training gets. As pointed out before, September is the toughest month of the lot with the  big workouts taking place over a long 4 weeks. This week was a bit different to previous week’s 60 mile plus efforts. I logged a modest total of 40 miles, happy to have a cutback week. This was due to us attending a wedding in Monaghan on the Fridaywith us having to undertake  a 4 hour drive up on the Thursday after work and another 4 hour drive down on the Saturday. It was a good wedding and it was interesting driving along the border around Clones, Monaghan town and Fermanagh. In Clones there were grim reminders of previous times with plaques to those killed in the bombing of 1974 and various ditchside plaques to those killed by the paramilitaries. Nevertheless with the peace process promising better times the famous northern hospitality was enjoyed by us revellers from the South though plenty of words were lost in translation !!!!

Monday was a 4 mile run with a 10 mile run at 7.21 pace on Tuesday and a 13 mile run at 8.10 pace on the Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday was the wedding in Monaghan. Sunday was the day of the local half marathon in Charleville. Organised by North Cork Ac I missed out on this race last year due to injury but was looking forward to it this year. It is a PB course and I had notions of pushing for a sub 94 minute time. However the morning of the race despite getting a good nights sleep in after the long drive down I decided it would be better not to push it too much. The wedding celebrations had taken it out of me so it was very much a case of see what happens on the day. The resting heart was around 53 beats rather than the more steady 48 beats of late.

The drive from my house to the start line took around 3 minutes, a nice change from the long journeys to East Cork, Clonmel, Dungarvan and Tullamore. I met as you would expect plenty of familiar faces and the chat as ever was pleasant.. I decided to line up behind the 95 minute pacer and see could I push on for the second half of the race. The first 3 miles of the course are slightly downhill which means the last 3 mile have a slight pull on the way back. Nothing major but enough to take a bit of energy out of your legs when finishing the race. As a result I took it handy enough for the first 3 miles running 7.07, 7.27 and 7.15. Michael Kilmartin, a fellow  club runner tore past me at mile 2. This was his first half marathon and I wondered if he might pay for such pace later on. As it was he didn’t, running a fantastic time of sub 1.30,an amazing time for a debut half marathon.

By mile 5 the sluggishness had left my legs and I ran mile 5 and mile 6 (through Killmallock) at around 7.13 and 7.17 pace. I was gaining ground on the 1.35 pacer. His group was dwindling away as many runners were beginning to take advantage of the downhill 4 miles.  By mile 9 I was on top of the pacer having run a couple of sub 7 minute miles. I hit mile 10 in around 1hr12mins10 seconds. The last 3 miles of the course took it’s toll on me two years ago when i finished in 1.35.50 but I was a lot more solid this time without ever at any stage looking strong enough to pull that far ahead. I ran mile 11, over the small humpback bridge in 7.07, giving me a small increase and a certain sub95 minute finish. Mile 12 was another 7.15 mile and it was the most enjoyable mile of the race with some good crowd participation and good craic with Paudie and his wife who were taking photos. Neverthe less I was feeling a small bit tired at mile 13 which passed in a slower mile of 7.27, rounding the final stretch in less than a minute. My final time crossing the line was 1.34.41 , a small improvement on two years ago and my second sub95 minute half marathon in 3 weeks.

When I crossed the line I recovered pretty quickly but drank around a litre of water such was my thirst. All the Mallow runners were very happy with their times with plenty of PB’s all round. I was happy enough with my efforts. It means I am in good shape for Amsterdam in 4 weeks time as to what kind of shape, we will see at the end of this week. As ever the race organisers put on a excellent race.

In retrospect I could have really pushed harder for a PB but I was happy to keep it steady all the way around the course. The various calculators have me down for a marathon predicted time of somewhere between 3hr19mins and 3hr25mins. Personally I prefer doubling my charleville time and adding a 15 minutes. It proves to be reasonably accurate. We will see....Another week awaits.