10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Midleton 5 Mile

1. Best Course in Cork

I think that the Midleton 5 mile route might be my favourite race route in Cork. It is a beautiful route, lovely rolling hills, nice smooth surface for most of the route and a little bit of country roads to mix it up. The start is near a huge car park and there are excellent places to warm up. You could hold a national championship there I imagine, it’s nearly perfect.

2. Adidas Pro 3.0

I thought that the rain on Thursday night might have resulted in a few Adidas Pro 3.0s appearing after Kipchoge’s defeat in Boston. An Adidas shoes hasn’t been seen in race in Cork since about 2004 which is amazing as they used to be very popular. The new Adidas shoes with their Continental rubber are supposed to be much better in the rain than Nike shoes, although this probably doesn’t matter on Irish roads which are grippy no matter what you are wearing. On the line despite the heavy persistent straight down rain there were no Adidas, the odd Asics with everyone else in Nike Vaporflys.

3. Fivers

I think that I should have registered online before the race. Cash is a disaster. The entry fee was €15 which is fine but they had no fivers and everyone either had €20 or €50. I had to wait for about five minutes while someone found a fiver which was very stressful and probably cost me a few seconds in the race. Fail to register online, prepare to fail.

4. 1,2,3,4

I think that the guy that did the countdown for the race should be forced to watch the Sesame Street Youtube video of 1,2,3,4 on loop for 6 hours like I have to as punishment for messing up the countdown to the start. It was unbelievable. He went 7, 6, 5, 2, 4, 3 ,5, 1 or something like that. Only Pat O’Connor understood this new system of counting and got a big head start on the rest of us. Perhaps other races could copy the system, it would stop fellas going on 2.

5. Pointing

I think that I could get a job at races as the person who leads the race the right way for the first two miles. I’m very good at leading the way and knowing the course. I know Midleton very well and because Michael Harty didn’t race I had to lead the way. I pointed to everyone where we were to go at the two slightly of confusing junctions. I did an excellent job and everyone went the right way. The route was painted on the road in case I wasn’t there which would probably have been fine too.

6. Los Lumpos Lazios

I think that it was incredibly lazy of the group to let me set the pace for the first two miles. I’m very tired from having run too many races and I’m nearly 37 which is quite very old. There was a massive bunch behind me after two miles, possibly 10 runners. If I had of been fresher, I might have been able to run faster to get away from them but about 5:20 pace was as fast as I could go.

7. Great Move

I think that knowing the course in great detail made knowing when to make a move much easier. I knew that after 2 miles the route goes left down a sharp hill by a farm so just before we got to the turn I went for it as fast as I could. I got a bit of a gap but unfortunately immediately after the downhill there is an uphill, so they all caught back up to me again. I might have gotten rid of a few of them but not Meade and not Mark Walsh. Michael McMahon said they were all just laughing at me which isn’t nice.

8. Castle Meade

I think that it was possibly impossible to beat John Meade on this course. I knew that I had to have a gap on him by the time we were on the hill by the castle at around 3.5 miles. When we started the hill I could only see Anthony Forristal and Mark Walsh which made me happy. Then John Meade drifted up the outside effortlessly looking like he was only getting started. This upset me greatly, I should have concentrated on Mark and Anthony but I prefer beating John Meade so I focused on him too much.

9. Instructions

I think that Donie Walsh is the master tactician when it comes to running races. There is probably no one better in the world. When we got to the turn back onto the closed road with about 800m to go I was unfortunately just behind Mark, Anthony and John. We passed Donie who gave the relevant instructions to Mark “Just do what you did to him last week”. Which is exactly what Mark did. I did nothing and ended up 4th again.

10. Pointless

I think that no matter what tactics I used in the race it was going to be pointless. The terrible thing about racing Mark Walsh is that you have to be fitter than him to beat him as he is too clever. It’s no use to be the same or a little bit fitter as he will outsprint you in the last mile. It’s the same with John Meade, you have to have them distanced well before the finish. I should probably go and do perfect training for a while and come back and beat them but by the time I’d have that done the races would all be over. I’d say I’m forever doomed to finish 4th for the rest of the year, at least there was a prize this time.