Donadea 50K & Irish Championships 2012.

My plan for today was to run an even paced race and finish in just under 3hrs30 and it was almost spot on.  My splits were fairly consistent with a slight changing of pace which was heart rate related and was usually caused by the change in terrain.  I went through a tough patch towards the end of lap 6 but soon came round after picking up a drink and by the end of lap 7 I was back in business.  The Marathon split  came in 2:55:50 and although I knew 3:30 was still possible I also knew my pace was dropping on the few climbs.  With less than 2K to go I thought the 3:30 was gone and subconsciously eased back and it was only on the final approach to the finish line that I realise I was still on schedule but noticed it too late and even my attempt at a sprint finish was too little and too late.  I crossed the line in 7th place with a time of 3:30:02 which was a second behind my training partner Jim McCormick.  Not a bad result and all in all I'm very happy with how the day went.
The Donadea 50K was a very enjoyable race and it was great to meet up and run on home soil with my Ultra Running Ireland Team Mates. I'm almost looking forward to running it again next year.

 I went into this race untapered and will use the training effect to move onto my next race.
Heart Rate Average = 148bpm.  It spiked slightly towards the end which accounts for the measurement error of 17%.