Royal County 5k

A wet summer's day in Kells today for the Meath Local Sports Partnership road race. Registration and post race tea/coffee was held in the Headford Arms Hotel, very close to the start line.
We did our warm ups and - of course - it started raining again. Once the race started we were running downhill for the first 600-800m and in the rain it felt like most of the rest of the race was climbing back up, although it wasn't. Pic of the race elevation below...

Throughout the 2-4k section I felt like I was going too fast, probably due to uphill sections, so I backed off a bit. When the road leveled out I'd try and pick it up again. From about the 4k mark the rain got really heavy and I had to squint to see the road ahead. I could hear my feet squelching with every step and a lot of the last section was like running in a shallow stream, although we were running back into the town. Near the end I heard the announcer say 22 something, and I assumed there were 22 finishers so far, then I glanced at my garmin and it said 21:xx! I put the pressure on and managed to finish in 22:13 (official). That's over a minute off my PB, not bad for the conditions. There was free water bottles at the finish line and also at about the 4k mark. The tea and coffee afterwards was just what I needed and all in all it was a very well organized event. Many thanks to all involved and well done to anyone who braved the elements!

Eoin