My Dad arrived on Friday for a few days. Running has suffered as a result - Friday was a trip into Galway to watch Luka Bloom in the Crane (superb gig). Then on Saturday we went out for a few quiet local drinks and ended up rolling in at 1:45am. Ouch. So two nights on the shant with no running. So well rested for today's race in Tuam...
Arrived in time for a 10 minute warm-up and a few strides. It was cold and there was a strong wind which made certain parts of the course pretty tough. There was a very strong field - a fair bit of prize money up for grabs which was good. The first km was clocked in 2:55 and although I was running quick with wind on the back, I immediately was questioning the km markers. Three runners were edging out in front leaving me solo running in 4th place. That's pretty much how the race remained. The second km was another quick one - a 3:06 again with wind benefit. Then we turned to head back into town and running into the wind was much tougher. The course itself was basically 2 x 4km loops so it was good to get an idea of the run on the first lap. The third 3km was a 3:28, and then there was a nasty climb as we approached the town centre and I went through the 4th km in 3:23.
So basically one lap down and one to go. I tried to push the quick section and managed to drop in a 3:09 and 3:12 for kms 5 and 6. I was still running by myself with the leaders now out of view and no one close behind me. I died a bit in the run home and the 7th km was a 3:21 so I thought a similar split for the final km would see me run a decent enough time. But the last km went on and on and despite really running hard, it was clocked at 3:55 leaving me crossing the line in 26:29. Yes, dodgy km markers!
I finished up with a couple of kms warm-down. All up 12km for the day. Then had to rush home to watch Spurs play Utd.
Only 57.6kms for the week...
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