not a pluviophile

That much is certain. On a wet Saturday morning I and club mate Paul Conway headed for Killeigh Co Offaly for another 26.2 mile trot. Good to have company again on these drives, as it makes the Four hour round trip a lot easier. As for the race itself I started off at a relatively slow pace keeping in mind I would be doing four of these over the next month. Biggest issue however was that I wasn’t running fast enough to keep warm so I had to pick up the pace in sections. From memory this was the first time I have run a marathon where it had rained from start to finish. I can honestly say I hope it is also my last. Job done in 4:14:05 and went to the local school for a much appreciated cup of warm soup some sambos and of course some chocolate biscuits as well. Also on offer was so more torture in the form of rub downs provided free of charge by Michelle Flynn. On reflection it looked more like a scene from M.A.S.H

Marathon Day 26.2.2016

Once Cezary and posted his intention to run a 28 loop course I had to do it. A marathon with more loops then the Eddie Murphy so I had to checkl out the competition. Left reasonably early but a lot of Roadwork’s on the way up meant hitting outskirts of Ballina at 9:30. Facing a huge traffic jam I pulled up Mrs Google on the phone and found a way around the town and traffic to get me to the star with 20 minutes to spare. Strange to be running on a work day so after dealing with some work calls I went to the start. Briefing was 28 laps of 1524 meters. I asked what was it in yards but Cezary didn’t take the bait. Loop was a nice mix of tarmac and small wooed path section. It did however have three very small but sharp rises one after another. You know the ones that take the stuffing out of your legs. I pretty much ran each loop in Nine minutes as was glad to finish in 4:08:43. More Tea and biscuits again afterwards and I wished those taking part in another 3 marathons over the weekend the best of luck.

A new PB

I set a new PB on Sunday well a pretty soft one at that. I have never an a 5 Mile (8K) race before so even if I crawled it would always be a PB. This is part of the Run Clare Series and I had promised Paula I would pace her for a shot at sub 40. On raceday she wasn’t confident and said anything under 43 minutes would be a PB. It was a lovely day for it, PB running weather. We got caught a little behind slower traffic at the start but no panic hit Mile one in 8:30 and Mile 2 in 16:50. I slowly picked up the pace until Paula was no longer talking. This got us to Mile 3 in 25:00 flat. I tried to pick it up again slightly but her breathing was becoming very laboured and she was starting to drop back on the hills. For the next mile the pace was about 8:10 or so, we hit the final mile which has a climb before getting a downhill to the finish. Paula had mentioned this several times in the race and once we hit it again the pace dropped. I tried to get her to attack the hill crest and push on for sub 41. It wasn’t there, she plugged away to finish in 4 or 5 seconds behind me and was extremely happy with her shiny new PB