I ran the above race today. I last ran this in 2012 and it was discontinued after 2013. This time it was ressurected as a fundraiser for the local GAA team, normally my least favourite organisation when it comes to running races but neverthless I entered it with a view to getting some races done in Autumn.
Earler in the week I felt I was recovered sufficently from my cold to run 4.5 miles on Monday. I had work stuff to do on Tuesday but the cold came back with a bang that night so I styaed off the roads until Saturday morning. I ran 4.5 miles at a very sluggish pace that morning but it did the trick of loosening up the legs for Sunday morning. The chest was a lot better.
The rain and wind hit with a vengence Saturday night and I was worried the race might be called off.
By the time I headed down Sunday morning it has cleared up a fair bit and held off pretty much until mid-day.
The plan was a simple one - get 2 miles done beforehand, run the race at a 9 minute plus pace and get another mile done afterwards. That woud give me a long run of 16 miles keeping me bang on my very rough schedule.
I parked the car outside the GAA club and ran a one mile loop around the town but had to cut the second mile short to enable me to get to the starting point in Waterloo.
The race/training run was very lesiurely . I kept behind runners I normally would have no problem in passing out. By mile 4 with the split working out as 9 mnute pace each I increased the speed ever so slightly . The fist 7 miles are uphill with a turnaround back down the way we came. I was fresh enough to run a small bit faster and the splits were around 8.20 pace. That said it is practically impossible to use a run as a strict training run as a) you are going to to want to pass out people, that's human nature and b) the mind is pushing you to go faster and I think this does lead to a increase the heart rat and exhertion..
As a result I was picking off runners one by one and I think no runner (bar one - Paul Healy) passed me out. Nevertheless the legs were feeling heavy by mile 11 and I had two awkward hills to negiotate .
The rain started coming down quite heavily at this stage and the local traffic was starting to make it's presence felt. I also noticed the mile markers were ever so slightly out.
I was happy to cross the finish line in a chip time of 1hr54mins20secs. It was a very comfortable run This time I didn't stop and ran on for over a mile or so back to my car. This gave me nearly 16 miles on the legs and I had enough at this stage.
I was feeling quite tired by the time I got to the car and while I would have prefered to have been fresher I did consider it a case of mission accomplished nothing more nothing less.
As a race it was on the whole a well organised event with a few problems that need to be ironed out but these are easily remedied. For example more stewarding on mile 10 onwards, perhaps another water station at mile 5 and get the course properly measured (it was 13.04 miles on my watch). That said it was great to have a race on the calendar and the whole feel was cheery and friendly.
As for my training hopefully I get back to the training plan over the next few weeks.
The 50k in Donadea calls for runners to run 50k under 5 hours which on the face of it should be manageable but is surprisingly difficult. I have my doubts after 2020's effort.
On a side note this was my 30th half marathon since 2010 !!!
Miles for the week Monday 4.5 miles, Saturday 4.5 miles, Sunday 15.6 miles (maybe 16miles, including a 13.1 race at 8.46 pace)
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