Tuesday, July 19, 2011

5 miler in the park

So this was the first of three races in the DCM race series, building up to the marathon in October. I had taken Friday off from training to prepare for it, the weather wasn't looking good though.
I sat in the car eating fruit and drinking water until about 09:30 and then did a warm up run of about 1.8k to the start line, or to be specific, the portaloos! There were lots, so I didn't have to wait long :-)According to the instructions on the website, and sent out along with the bib numbers, there were three wave starts. Wave 1 for sub 40mins, wave 2 for 40-50mins and wave 3 for +50mins. As my previous 8k time was 36mins, I went into the back of wave 1. 

Anyway I set my Garmin to a "quick workout" and set it for 8km in 35mins. Then I reset it to 40mins, so I wouldn't be putting too much pressure on myself - glad I did that now.
There wasn't a starters gun, but I did notice the front runners move off rapidly, so I guessed we had started! It took about 20 secs for me to get over the line, so I started my Garmin then. The narrow roads in the Phoenix Park made it pretty congested. It took me about 1.5-2k to get past the walkers/joggers that had started in front of me, but I was able to get my pace up to 4:30-4:20min/k, which was my target really. There was one water station about the half way mark and I took a cup, but I can never get the hang of drinking from a cup while running. I managed two small gulps and dropped the rest over my legs, which actually felt good and cooled them down.
Then came the real test: Kyber Road, 1km all uphill. I focused on keeping running, slowing as needed and not looking too far ahead. I went down to about 5:30min/k, but that should have been ok along with my earlier pace overall. I tried to give encouragement to people who had to walk, and a few of them started running again. At the top of the hill, the finish line was about 200m away and I gave it all I had, although I was tired from the climb. The clock said 39:32, but my Garmin said 39:20, which would be more accurate. I was disappointed with my time, but given the crowds it couldn't be avoided really. I got a cup of water, two bananas and my goodie bag and started to breath normally again. I was cooling down pretty fast and started to feel cold in no time, so I jogged the 1.8k back to the car as a cool down run.


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