The Great Race

I was asked to run the course of a new upcoming race in Galway called the Great Race (June 17th). It's a 10km that starts and finishes at the Galway Racecourse and the idea was to run it as a tempo session to get a feel for the course. I ran it with Fintan and the route starts with a half-lap of the racecourse (running anti-clockwise), then out onto the roads before finishing with almost a full clockwise lap of the racecourse (the finish line is the same one used by the horses). The route uses the sealed path around the racecourse so you avoid having to run on grass so basically the whole route is on paths and road.

We ran it comfortably hard covering the 10km in 35:35. A good quick start to the course, with a short-sharp 300m climb at around the 7km mark, and an uphill finish as you round the last corner running up to the grandstand. All in all a very enjoyable route and certainly a quick course if you take the run out hard using the net downhill in the first half.

All up 13.4kms for the day with warm-up/down. Forgot to mention the knee - still not great but I took a couple of ibuprofen beforehand which must have helped. Not good practice and something I don't make a habit of but I'm sure all runners have done the same at some point...