10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Churchtown 10

1. Big Big Rain

I think it is a pity that the Churchtown 10 miler wasn’t a cross country race. With all the rain that has fallen a 10 mile cross country race would be wonderful. Instead all the rain did was turn the 10 mile route into two laps of 5 miles which is actually a great idea because it allows more opportunity for excellent photos.

2. VIP Parking

I think that I was very lucky with parking for the race. I was relatively on time by my standards arriving 30 minutes before the race but it looked like I would have to park well away from the hurling field where the race registration and start were. Then I saw a familiar face in a safety vest walking towards me, John Mannion, “pull in there at my house, it’s the house next to the hurling field”. I got stopped by several stewards on my drive up through the town but all I had to do was roll down the window and say the magic word “John Mannion” and I was ushered through.

3. Between the Living and the Dead

I think that sleep is very important especially the night before the race. I had very bad sleep on Friday night, it was very broken bad sleep that left me extremely head tired. I had the alarm set for twenty past seven in the morning, I initially ignored it and went back to sleep before waking at twenty to eight and deciding that I might as well go to the race. I’m nearly 40 now which means that bad sleep means that everything feels foggy, not even coffee will fix it.

4. Head Tired

I think that you can tell a lot about how a race is going to feel by the warmup. This is probably the first time that I have experienced what Michael Herlihy calls head tiredness. Nothing was working the way it should, I had no injuries or niggles or pains but everything felt slow and delayed. My heart rate was even high which is very unusual. It is very difficult to tell whether head tiredness is actually a thing or is it just being nearly 40.

5. Tro-Bro Léon

I think that it was great to have a visitor from Bretagne in France in the race. Nohé Le Guillou was his name. I started talking to him on the startline because he was wearing a Valencia half marathon t-shirt and I thought he was Spanish. He thought I was Spanish too which was great and excellent. Just before the race started we exchanged half marathon times, I ran 69 in Seville once, then just as the race was starting, he said he ran 66 in Valencia and with that I realized I was not going to win.

6. Jeuken it Out

I think the only man in the race who was not phased by the 66 minute half marathon Breton was Chris Jeuken. It took until about a kilometer into the race for Chris to actually appear, most likely because he was tired from having already run two laps of the course. I passed on the important information about the Breton having a 66 minute half which Chris acknowledged before taking off up the first of the many hills after Nohé. It was a great pity that John Meade wasn’t racing as if he had he would have spent the whole race tormenting Nohé by talking to him in French.

7. Mile Long Mountain

I think that the race route was wonderful, entirely unsuitable for someone of my height but great for maximizing suffering. There were many hills, the most important hill was the mile long hill from three to four miles which was then repeated a second time from eight to nine miles. It is a very excellent hill as you can see a kilometre of it straight out in front of you before you turn left and have to run up an even steeper part of the hill for another 600m to complete the mile long mountain.

8. Never Run Past The Car

I think that the only problem I have about the two lap course is that when you are a head tired sleep deprived nearly 40 year old man it is very tempting to stop after a lap when you are going past the car. I was very tempted especially as I had been left behind by Chris, Nohé and Sean Davin who were flying up the hills at an annoying rate. I distracted myself from the temptation to stop by thinking about breaking 55 minutes again.

9. John Walshe’s List

I think the only thing that kept me going on the second five mile lap was the possibility of getting another sub 55 time for John Walshe’s list. I have broken it twice this year, in Dungarvan when I beat Tadhg O’Sullivan for the last time ever even though I only had half a leg and hadn’t been training properly and a few weeks ago in England. Finishing the first lap the clock showed 27 minutes and 10 seconds or so which wasn’t a bad time for a hilly five mile route so I had a bit of a buffer.

10. If You Can See It You Can Run It

I think that it is a terrible feeling to watch the clock tick over the time you want to run. I could see the clock showing 54 minutes with about 200m to go, it was even a downhill 200m.Unfortunately due to the bad head tiredness and being nearly 40 I had to watch as the clock ticked well over the 55 minutes by the time I reached the finish line. My hopes of a third appearance in the John Walshe list were gone, fourth place, my unusual place, I did however win the M35 category which was great. I warmed down with Viv who was worryingly close to beating me having danced up the hills like they weren’t there. Luckily he doesn’t trust me about the Pumas so I was saved from a bad beating.