Galway Half Marathon

First place in a time of 1:11:54!

I nearly missed the start and lined up just as the gun was about to go. Settled into the front group with the ultra guys and a nice flat start with the first mile passing in 5:18. Feeling pretty good and although I hadn't slowed, about 4 or 5 ultra runners soon picked up the pace and started to gap me. I was left running with a Japanese runner who was also doing the 50km with no other half marathoners in sight. That's how it stayed really for the rest of the race - me running with the Jap, slowing ticking off the miles.

A tough course with some sharp uphills and drags - difficult to get into a rhythm. By 10 miles I was looking for the finish. The hardest part was the trip up and down the jetty where the return section was running straight into the wind for about 500m. Anyway, I gritted out the last few miles and despite thinking that I was slowing a lot, that wasn't really the case. I approached the city and the final section around the docks and crossed the finish line in 1:11:54 feeling pretty happy with myself.

So that's almost a 2 minute PB. Very happy with the time - especially on that course. A lot of runners were way slower than what they expected - ranging from 1 to 4 minutes. So that makes it all the more pleasing. I'd put it down as a similar course to the Sydney half in May in terms of toughness. I won by over 1 minute, then a big gap to 3rd place:

http://www.galwaycitymarathon.com/news/156-marathon-results

That's 84.3km for the week. The biggest result so far in my running "career". And a few Euros in prize money for doing something you enjoy. Wow.

Mile splits were:

1 5:18
2 5:19
3 5:26
4 5:43
5 5:21
6 5:34
7 5:22
8 5:39
10 10:57
12 11:01
13.1 6:14