Where:
Claregalway, Co. Galway.
When:
20 August 2005 @ 6:00 PM.
Distance:
10KM.
Conditions:
Cloudy but dry, slightly breezy.
Course:
Single slightly overlapping circuit through local countryside.
Competitors:
130+ including 11 from Athenry AC.
Detail:
I had run Claregalway twice previously, neither time with any
great effect. Last year, myself and Ray O'Connor tore a few
strips off each other and I still didn't get within a minute
of my then PB on what was a great day for racing. This year
was different or so I'd hoped!
My training has been going much better (quality and quantity!)
with an immediate target of the Longford Marathon 8 days
hence. This short race was going to blow the cobwebs off, or
so Mick Rice kept trying to convince me during the week. He
said that running this race hard would make no difference to
my Marathon attempt; others weren't quite as sure. Anyhow, it
would be difficult not to run the race at full tilt once the
gun went off and so it proved.
Started close to Alan Burke as I knew he would go very close
to 40:00 on the evening. I felt that he would be faster than
me, so it was up to me to keep him close at hand for as long
as I could. Josephine Gardiner and Maura Dervin started
alongside me and we ran mostly together right up to 4KM.
Wally Walsh passed me, as usual, just after the 1KM mark but
he didn't make any headway into me after that and I passed him
against just after 2KM. I was tailing Gardiner the whole time
while Dervin was just ahead. Burke had streaked ahead from
the school and was 30 to 50 metres ahead by 2KM, a distance
that stayed pretty constant right up to 6KM. More anon.
At 2KM, my watch started beeping at me and I fairly quickly
realised what the problem was. All the splits had been taken
up in memory but it still seemed to keep recording them as I
went along. I don't normally look at my watch when running
and prefer to analyse/savour them after the finish.
Afterwards, I made the fatal mistake, on this occasion, of
trying to save the splits that were taken before looking at
them, losing them completely in the process. I do know that I
got to 2KM in 7:48 and then to 5KM in a PB of just over 19:46.
At that stage, I was hurting.
Walsh was still behind me, Gardiner, Dervin and Burke up
ahead. I spied Johnny O'Connor for the first time then. He
seemed to be struggling somewhat.
We all were... I didn't see Walsh again for the rest of the
race. Only afterwards, I found out that he had stopped at 7KM
with a hamstring twinge. Got to 6KM and was doing 4:10s. Not
good enough! Would I be able to hold it together? 50/50, I
felt. I might just do enough to duck under the increasingly
difficult 10KM PB I'd set myself earlier this summer.
7KM clocked through with Gardiner and myself swapping the
"lead" twice midways through the KM. Got to 8KM, midways
between Terry Brennan's and Claregalway Castle, in another PB
of 32:19 but I was continuing to run out of steam. The people
ahead of me were slowly, but very surely, pulling away from
me, even Dervin had opened up a 6 or 7 second lead on Gardiner
and myself.
Was passed by two athletes in the second half of the race,
somewhat surprisingly. One a lad who seemed to slow down
around half way only to substantially quicken up again. The
other lad wearing an iPod just before 9KM. There is something
that really gets my blood boiling about people who wear such
things in so-called race situations.
Unfortunately, I didn't have enough energy to
stick it to him over the final KM :(.
Still bad form though!
Once we turned the corner and hit for the school, and back to
the Community Centre, we were very much in sight of home. I
still had Gardiner, and to a much lesser degree, Dervin in my
sights. I didn't look at my split for 9KM so didn't know
exactly how much I had to do to duck under the 40:39 bar.
Instead, just tried my best to get home in the best shape that
I could.
In the end, Gardiner beat me by a handful of seconds with me,
in turn, beating Tom Elwood home by about 50 metres.
40:42. B-a-l-l-a-c-k-s... I was so close but yet so far -
three measly seconds. If I'd known that I was that close at
9KM, could/would I have been able to go any quicker? Who
knows. My last three 10KMs were now: 40:44 (Dunshaughlin),
40:39 (Dundrum), 40:42 (Claregalway). Consistent, yes,
maddening, even more so!
I also knew it meant a report would have to be written but
only for my 5KM and 8KM times.
My immediate thought was that I have a lot more work still to
do to shave anything more off my 10KM time, if this is the
case. On a perfect evening with a bit of a taper that week, I
still couldn't take anything off my PB :(.
Had I done damage to myself for 8 days time? I also know I
had a half-marathon to run the next morning as well! No rest
for the mad. Left hamstring was tight during the race. I
didn't constrict me but I felt it there all the same...
Burke easily ducked under 40:00 for the first time. Well
deserved and well done! Dervin finished 12 seconds ahead with
Gardiner three ahead.
The next 10KM may not be until Hollymount late in the year,
which I heard was going ahead. It will be its 40th running
too!