Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Racecourse

Not feeling great at all today...

I headed out late to the Galway racecourse for a run that has been recommended to me by several different people. There is a path around the circumference of the racetrack and I decided to run some laps...

The first lap was a feeler to get used to the new terrain. I ran 9:47 so I estimated that it was about 1.5 miles. So based on that I set my target of 10 laps which would get me running for a good hour and a half and I also wanted to keep each lap under 10 minutes.

A nice run but it gets a bit boring running lap after lap. I was running the same direction as what the horses race and my start/finish was about 100m past where the parade ring is. The run itself is fairly flat except a downhill section towards the end of the lap followed by a long uphill around the final bend leading up to the finish line. Nothing too daunting.

I tried to run a little quicker after 5 laps and I finished off running the 10 laps in 1:37:04. I've been informed each lap is actually 1.47 miles so it turns out I ran 14.7 miles or 23.7kms. Quite quick averaging 4:06/km.

The lap times were:

9:47,9:40,9:52,9:48,9:42,9:41,9:39,9:44,9:37,9:35

Happy enough with that. That's 80.5kms for the week. Not a great week as I only really got one decent session in. Must do better...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The racecourse is a great place to train when the weather gets cold and it starts freezing, that place could be the secret to Gerry Ryan as he goes there nearly every day before he starts in Boston Scientific...

Anonymous said...

I used to use the racecourse but as Matt says it does get boring. Matt you should try Renville Park in Oranmore. A complete lap is over 2 miles. Good ground for the legs. If the weather is bad (no golfers) head on to the golf club and enjoy the best views of Galway and much better grass than the racecourse.

BeerMatt said...

Thanks for the feedback. I may try Renville Park again soon. I've run there before but I'm not really sure of the 2 mile loop but I'm sure I'd soon work it out.