Finding my level!

Wednesday 22^nd May 2013 – 12.0km Mtn Race # 5 – Glasnamullen and lap of Djouce.

About halfway up to Djouce

Race number 5 in the Leinster League and I was feeling a bit jaded after last nights 5km PB. So, I decided to take it handy enough early on and see how I felt once I started the downhill and take it from there. We started with a lap of the car park field across the main road from the trailhead. This was intended to string out the field before hitting the trail but I’m not quite sure how effective it was as we still seemed pretty well grouped when crossing the road and I was content to sit-in somewhere around 75th place I reckoned.

There was about 1.5km of a mixture of fireroad and trail before we crossed the fence and river and were now on open mountainside. The gentle slope of earlier gave way to a much steeper slope and feeling the effects of last nights run meant it wasn’t too long before I resorted to a walk-run effort. Each time I’d walk I’d lose about 3 or 4 paces to the guy in front over 20 secs or so, and then a quick little trot soon closed the gap back. I only got passed by a few people all the way up to the boardwalk section so it worked out reasonably well. Once on this new section we were traversing the contour line around Djouce until we hit the point where the Wicklow Way path meets the Djouce path. Only a week on from running this section in the last race we were retracing our steps. About 200m into this steep climb I once again resorted to walk-run for about 200m more before settling for hiking the remainder of the way to the top. This section is very steep and with lots of loose rock and scree it reminds me somewhat of Croagh Patrick.

Eventually we made it to the top of Djouce and from here on home it was all downhill. It took the legs a little time to readjust but I was soon motoring pretty well. I could feel the legs beginning to tire but I tried to just guide them down all the same. For the most part there was two guys in front of me and we were moving like a train with three carriages. Then halfway down the open mountainside the middle carriage derailed to fix his boot. The gap to the front carriage had opened up a little at this point though and I wouldn’t catch him again.

I caught up to another guy just as we were re-crossing the river and then it was just a 1500m run home. However, once I got up the far bank my legs really began to sag and took another 30 seconds to wake up again. At this stage I could hear footprints loud as day behind me so I held him off for as long as possible but with about 300m left he got past me and ran on to beat me by a few seconds. I simply had nothing left to give after last night and then the long downhill this evening. Still though, one guy who normally finishes in front of me had been passed on the ascent and never came back past me again. So I was pretty happy with my evenings work when I saw him arrive in a few places behind me.

Not long later, when I checked the results, I discovered I have an uncannily consistent nature. My finishing position last night follows on from my first four races of 66^th, 66^th, 100^th, 65^th & now 66^th! (and that one major anomaly of 100th was the week I was sick!)

(Also: 1.5km Warm-up & 1.7km cool-down)

Thursday 23rd May 2013 - 8.1km Dublin Staff Relay - Leg 1 & Leg 3

Finish line

On a very windy evening in the Phoenix Park we had entered two work teams for this Staff Relay event. I was running leg 1 of the '5km' course so I made my way to the start line just before 6pm with the first runner of our other team. Seeing as I'd had two tough days I decided to go towards the back of the crowd. This meant that once we started I was blocked from going off too fast and when I got into my stride I was passing people the whole way around. The run was very enjoyable and I put in a decent effort but as I crossed the line to handover to my team-mate I noticed the course only registered 4.33km! Not very bothered really as it was more a social event than anything. If it wasn't for the bitterly cold wind it would have been a great evening. Even so, it was pretty good fun anyways. And happily for me I was the quickest split! In fact I was so cold after my leg that I went out again with our third leg and ran the course with him so that I got warmed up again before changing into street clothes! As the photo shows it was an evening for gloves...in the middle of May!!

Week 21 Summary (so far):
RTW: 3 from 4 days
DTW: 30.1km
DTY: 1,662.8km