Dublin City Marathon

My second attempt at the Dublin City Marathon and I was as nervious but still looking forward to it as any other marathon I've done, I was looking to knock what I considered a sizable amount of time off with this marathon and I was pretty sure I was ready as I was ever going to be,

However, that still didn't stop me getting sick during last week and spending Sunday in bed hoping that I could reduce the affects of being sick on the actual race.

So I started off with 3:30 pacers and stayed with them pretty much without much problems right through the Phoenix Park and beyond, have to say found the first three water stations pretty chaotic as a number of runners just ran right across people without evening looking, after that they got alot less chaotic.

Although water stations are generally somewhat chaotic for big races this race seemed worse then others I've experienced,

I felt good coming up to half way point and was maybe 5-6seconds ahead of the pacers until around mile 15 at which time I settled back into the group as I was beginning the struggle.

At the mile 18mark the wheels started to come off and I was dropped by the pacers and ended up around 200-300metres behind them, after the 18mile mark there's a small hill at which time my left leg started to cramp in a big way as I headed up this hill and it was agony,  I ended up stopping and stretching sooner after to try relieve the pain somewhat.

The muscle pain basically set the remaining part of the race as I'd manage perhaps 1mile at a time and the muscle would cramp again and either I'd keep going through the pain for a little while longer or I'd stop to stretch it out again at which time I might last another mile.

Mile 23 onwards felt pretty endless and it didn't help that I didn't see the mile 24 or mile 26 markers at all, from mile 25 I gave up stopping to stretch and just ran through the pain.

Around 800metres from the end I spottred a guy dressed as a clown with two red bollons, this guy stuck in my head as I actually had passed him and spoken to him somewhere in O'Connell street earlier in the race.....at this stage I was determient as hell that I wouldn't be beaten by a clown!

So I upped the pace and finish in 3hours 41min 44seconds with average pace of 8:28 min/mi, previous personal best was 3hours 58min and 33seconds so I'm very happy with the outcome :)

Finally my Garmin log of the race.

Last of the long runs

So I'm pretty much as set as I'm ever going to be for the Dublin City Marathon on the 29th October, I've got plenty of 20mile runs in and I've seen a nice improvement in my pace over the past few weeks.

Originally my plan for DCM was to maintain a 5:20min per km pace which would bring me in around the 3:45 mark, at first this was a effort to hit on training runs but in recent weeks and more comfortably hitting the 5:10min per km mark.  Taking into account the improved pace I'm now looking at 3:40 mark but with the adrenalin on the day I should be well into the 3:3X region.

So one long run left this Saturday and then one or two short runs during the week just to keep the legs moving. This is going to be fun!

JJ Reddy Danesfort 10K Road Race

I've not done a 10km race since back in June so decided to give it another crack and see how I'd go, so I signed up to the JJ Reddy Danesfort 10K Road Race in Co Kilkenny.

At first I thought the race would be a handy one but as i drove to the start line I realized just how hilly the route would be so I decided that perhaps my hopes of setting a new PB for a 10km distance might not be so great....

Race appeared to be somewhat disorganized at the start which was frustrating but once it got going managed to loose most of the people, straight away I could see the hills were going to be abit of a problem.

I gave it all I got anyway and found it awful hard until around the half way mark at which stage the hills were less of an issue, at around the 7km mark I passed around three people which gave me a good boost as I had them infront of me since the start.   

Around 1km from the finish a chap came along side me and I managed to keep pace with him for a good 500metres but the last hill before the finish really was hard going so I lost him, he was the only guy to pass me. 

All in all I shaved approx 1min from my PB...however I've yet to see the official chip times.  Garmin time of 44:22.

All important garmin log of the race