10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About the Seeley Cup

1. Gravity

I think that there must be less gravity up north. That or everyone is just way fitter than down south. Nothing else could explain the speed of the Seeley Cup. It’s a special race.

2. Check Out My Buns

I think that it was just as well I kept the box of cakes that we bought at George’s Market for after the race. A 3pm start means that breakfast must be very known and very small.

3. Croissant Search

I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a croissant in Belfast. They had nothing but baps and pancake like things at the market. The French patisserie was sold out so I’d to settle for the cafe in M+S where the average age of the clientele was about 83. It was a very excellent croissant.

4. The Start is at 3pm right?

I think I was very lucky to make the race at all. For some reason I had it in my head that the race started at 3pm. I parked up on the Ormeau Road at 210pm and jogged over to collect the numbers, I was wondering why there were so many people warming up so early. When I got the numbers I said “the race starts at 3 right”. “No 230”. I ran back to the car, told Rhona we had 10 minutes to get to the start. Installed the the Vaporflys and sprinted to the start.

5. Meade Warm Up

I think that John Meade is right that warm ups are a waste of time. It’s no way to prepare for running fast by running slow. You’re much better off sprinting to the start in a pair of Vaporflys.

6. Better the Devil you Don’t Know

I think the best thing about running up in Belfast is that I didn’t know any of the people that I was racing. There was no negative thinking, no “ah jaysus he’s ahead of me”. Instead it was just follow the group, assume everyone is brilliant because they’re from the North and dare not look at the watch.

7. Green and Pink

I think nearly everyone in the top 50 was wearing either green or pink shoes. It was ridiculous. If they weren’t wearing green or pink they were wearing the original blue 4%. Total domination. Not an Adidas Suction Boot in sight. The only issue with the prevalence of Vaporflys was that everyone was struggling with the corners. It’s absolutely impossible to change direction, there were shoulders and elbows flying everywhere on the first of the three laps.

8. Meandering Heaney

I think it was a good decision to follow Heaney on the first lap. He took a different line to the rest of the pack, it’s like he’d done some research on the best line to the first corner. I knew I’d be able to stay somewhere near him as I’d beaten him in the cross country last week. I managed to hang on until about 5k, then the elastic got longer but never snapped.

9. Still Bouncing

I think the Vaporflys really start working in the second half do the race. The great thing about them is that you can go off as hard as you like because no matter how wrecked you get you’ll still be able to run reasonably fast. On the third and final lap I was in exceptional trouble and normally would have been reduced to 6 minute miles. But when you’ve magic shoes all you’ve to do is maintain some semblance of running form and the shoes do the rest.

10. Cheaterflys

I think that the Vaporflys have to be banned. It is utterly ridiculous that I was able to run almost 2 minutes faster than I used to be able to for 10k just because of a shoe. It’s like when you’d get the cheat code for Jonah Lomu rugby on the PlayStation. It’s great fun for a while but it gets boring pretty quickly when you’ve 15 Jonah Lomu’s in every match. I suppose at least with the Vaporflys, everyone else has the cheat code too.