Adidas 5 mile run

A dull and overcast day greeted the runners for the Adidas 5 mile run in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
I started from Sean’s house and we ran a gentle warm up of about 20/25 minutes around the park – I hadn’t realised how fantastic the tracks around the park are for running – we then headed for the start line.
Sean headed off to do some strides and I hopped over the barrier close to the front. I had made the mistake at the BUPA 10k of starting too far back – actually in the correct time pen - and had no chance of getting a decent time with all the fat arsed women blocking the road. This time I thought that I would be close enough to the start line that I may be one of the fat arses that people were trying to get past. In the 10 or 15 minutes before the race started every available space in front of me was filled with runners of all shapes and sizes.
A sudden push forward heralded the start of the race. Away I went zig zagging through the runners, giving out to myself for starting too far back again.
I checked my watch at about ½ mile and I was totally surprised to find that I was 15 seconds ahead of schedule at the mile mark I was a full 30 seconds up.
I knew that there were a few hills ahead so I was happy enough to be ahead of time at this point.
Mile 2 was still below target – another 3 seconds ahead – not too bad.
It all started to fall apart from mile 3 – 13 seconds over target.
Mile 4 - 35 seconds too slow – this section was mainly up hill, well, at least it felt like that…. no, no it really was !!
Mile 5 – 5 seconds too slow.
When I set my target time for this event I was looking for a PB of sub 37.07, this time was set at the Sportsworld 5 mile race a couple of months previously and was the day after the Mount Leinster Challenge, 140 km cycle including over Mt Leinster twice, so sub 37.07 was my out loud time…….my in my head time was sub 35…….. 34.59 would have been really good.
I finished up 32 seconds behind my “in my head time” and to be honest I’m a bit disappointed, although if McMillan is to be believed that time is good enough to keep me on track for the Dublin City Marathon – I hope he’s right………….