Tom Byrne Memorial 5K 2012 / Lucan Harriers

 

 A perfect day for a race and even though I'm still in recovery mode I knew this would be a good one.  The started the day with my usual pre breakfast run and I arrived at the race headquarters well ahead of time to allow time for a warm up and more importantly meet and chat with the usual suspects.  My plan for today came in 3 parts, 1: to run a PB, 2: to run sub 17 min if I started well,  3: sub 18 as fallback.  I hate including a fallback in my race plan as I believe you're either in or you're not and sometimes a fallback plan can give you a mental escape route but my way of preventing the cop out is to declare your plan to those you respect.

On the start line I spotted Eoin Brett from Newbridge AC and he regularly finishes ahead of me so I picked him out as a target and checked out his planned finish time which fitted in with my plan.  We ran together as part of a group with Eoin leading the way up to 2k and I then took the lead to give Eoin a break and we then stayed together up until 3K before splitting up.  I don't know if Eoin fell back or if I pushed on but by 4K I was out on my own and when you're on your own the incentive to push on isn't the same.

I can remember seeing the 4K marker and even though I knew in advance where it was I was thinking to myself that 1K is a long way to go and the voices in my head were telling me to slow down.  I tried to push harder and don't know if I did but when I reached the home stretch on the Lucan Harriers running track it felt like my pace was slowing.  In the distance I could hear my name being called and that pulled the trigger for the final sprint before the bend to the last 100M and I crossed the line in a new PB time of 17:20 which was enough to get me a category win in the O40.

     

During the few days before the race my training included a heavy squatting session that resulted in a bad case of the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and I don't think it had cleared by race day which has me thinking that when I can afford to rest and taper I'll really surprise myself.

Photos thank to:
Tony Brennan.
Peter Mooney.

Race Results.

The Runmute

Running Home.

Photo owned by David Craig.

Kildare Marathon 2012

The Start

Yesterday I paced the sub 3:15 pace group in the Kildare Marathon and although I wasn't looking forward to the responsibility it went quite well and I finished in 3:14.22.  Since returning from the 100K World Championships less than a month ago I haven't been feeling 100% and more than likely I'm still recovering from that race both physically & mentally.  It's the mental recovery that I was most concerned about as this was effecting my concentration which would also effect my pacing.  During a few practice runs I found that my pace was always drifting back to my 100K pace whenever I lost concentration and it was only during this Marathon that I managed to get back in the zone.  Maybe thats because I had the extra responsibility and wasn't running just for me.

It took a while before I started to get into the run but once I warmed up which was probably after 30K it felt like I could just keep going and was half tempted to run the a 10K race that started 30 minutes after I finished the Marathon.  I mentioned that idea in conversation and then a few others started talking about it so I changed my mind.

Approaching the finish.

Photos thanks to Peter Mooney.
Kildare Marathon Results.

Le Cheile 5K 2012

Not a PB but all things considered I'm happy with the result.  My plan was to run at 10K pace and hold it as long as possible with the aim of finishing in under 18 mins.  Unexpectedly  I finished less than 10 seconds outside my 5K PB without feeling like I'd raced and that's probably because I didn't have the leg turnover to run any faster so soon after my recent 100K and the lack of any race specific speed work.



A selection of photos available from:
Tony Brennan.
Peter Mooney.
James Shelley.

Finished the day with a recovery run practicing my pacing for a 3:15 Marathon.