Stook 10mile Road Race 2014

My cowbell collection is growing....

Another year and another run at the Stook 10mile road race organized by Gowran A/C in Dungarvan, Co Kilkenny.

This is the third year that Stook has been held and the second year I've attended and I must say I enjoyed this year more then last.  Its a well organized event and hats off to the local community for helping to put on the race.

After running Stook last year I knew what I was in for so I wasn't very hopeful of setting a new 10mile personal best, however I still figured I'd likely set a course PB as I've been doing a lot more hill training these last few months.....surely that has to stand to me?

The morning didn't begin well with the car not starting so after a mild panic about not making it to the race and getting a loan of a car 30min later I made it to Dungarvan with time to spare thankfully.

A quick 1mile warmup and I was ready to go!  The conditions this year were great, it was relatively dry with the exception of some water run-off from fields in places but more importantly it was lovely and cool.

Got chatting to a few familiar faces including Vincent who is the race director of the Tullaroan Marathon which is also held in Co Kilkenny, had a few mentions of people reading the blog as well from people.

At 12 midday we were off bang on time, I felt good from the start so I started with a 6:40 pace for the first mile however as the first small climbs hit this dropped to 7min pace for mile 2. But I was able to bring it down to sub 6:50min pace for miles 3-5.

By mile 7 I was finding the hills hard and the legs were tired so the pace dropped to its slowest of 8:34 as an avg pace for this mile, while this is slow its still faster then the same mile last year which I ran over a 9min pace....so overall that is an improvement even when I'm tired :)

By the time I hit the start of the flying mile the legs were pretty tired but I was hoping I'd be able to get a bit of a re-charge on the downhill so down I went and I ultimately managed a 5:56min pace for this mile which I'm happy with as this is still 4seconds faster for the same mile last year.

Unlike last year however two people managed to pass me on the flying mile and I didn't manage to catch anybody, I have to say this was a bit of a knock to the confidence as at the time I didn't think I was doing a very fast pace at times.  

By the time I hit half a mile to go to the finish I was really hoping for the finish but I could hear somebody right behind me and I was determined that they wouldn't pass me so I just gave it everything and upped the pace to finish the last mile strong with a 6:38min pace. 

I finished with a chip time of 70min 10seconds, this puts me 3min and 2 seconds faster then last years run so while its not a PB (PB is 69:20) its a course PB and if I can do this time on a hilly course I can certainly improve on my PB on a flatter course.

Garmin log of the race, also full results from the race are available here.

This weeks runs broke-down as:
- Monday: 9miles @ 7:46min pace
- Tuesday: Rest
- Wednesday: 4miles @ 8:36min pace
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: 3miles @ 8:46min pace
- Saturday:Rest
- Sunday: 10miles @ 6:59min pace + .95mile @ 11.03min pace (warm-up)

Weekly Total: 27 miles
Miles This Year: 1,813 miles