Sunday, November 8, 2009

Crookstown Motorway 10k

At times I wonder what goes on in my head when it comes to sports goals.
Just 12 days after a tough run in the Dublin marathon I fancied my chances of a - by my standards - fast 10k run. I don't know why I thought I could do this, I had a 2 week taper before Dublin and only ran 5 - 6 easy runs after, none of these were more than 4 miles, also my nutrition hasn't been the best, I haven't weighed myself lately but my belt is telling me all is not well.

I arrived at the race by a rather circuitous route having failed to read the directions properly, for awhile I feared that I would be too late to collect my race number but I needn't have worried, I certainly wasn't last to collect a number.

After a warm up it was onto the start line. The race started about 10 minutes late and although the weather was cold, wet and windy I was ok as I wore an extra t-shirt, track top and hat and only took these off seconds before the start.

I ran the Adidas series in the Phoenix Park earlier this year, this consisted of a 5 mile, a 10 mile and a half marathon. I managed to run each one of these better than the last so maybe this is where my inflated opinion of my ability to run the 10k faster the the 5 miler came from.

The first mile was bang on target but even at this early stage I knew that I wasn't going to sustain the pace. I dropped 12 seconds in the second mile and a further 19 in the third.
The turn around point was along a gravel track, across a bridge and back down onto the opposite side of the motorway. There was a timing mat at the half way point, I hit this at single seconds over 22 mins.
A sub 45 would still be possible if I could maintain a decent pace and not drop more that 1 minute more that the first half.
To be honest I didn't think this would be possible as I was feeling tired and when I hit the head wind on the exposed road I reckoned that was the end of a sub 45.
I was passed by a number of people in miles 4 and 5, I didn't even attempt to hang on to any of these runners, I just kept trying not to drop too much more pace.

With just over 1km to go I was overcome by a wave of nausea, this was completely out of the blue, I still can't explain the cause but the result was that I discovered that a concrete motorway dividing barrier is the perfect height for me to lean over. I resumed running for another few yards and had to stop again.
I lost numerous places stopping like that and I tried in the remaining km to regain some of these lost places.
Within sight of the line I closed up behind another runner, I was very much in a world of my own but he caught my eye when he started to speed up so I couldn't pass him. I had one of those will I, won't I moments but the thought of a sprint at that point wasn't worth the extra place... maybe next time !!

I crossed the line in 81st place at 45.42.
I am disappointed with the result but comforted slightly by the fact that I was not fully recovered from the Dublin marathon and if I wasn't forced to stop I would have at least hit the sub 45.
Oh! nearly forgot it was also a PB

It's a real pity that that race was a one off.




Bookmark and Share

3 comments:

Sean said...

Stay from those walls and barriers, sounds like they're making you sick....

Sean said...

Stay from those walls and barriers, sounds like they're making you sick....

Progman2000 said...

Congrats on your race - nice blog!