Claregalway 5k

Tuesday evening saw the running of the 4th in the Galway 5k series. I didn't get to register for the series as my wife won the toss on this one.

Anyway due to tiredness on acount of the kids I was 'subbed' in with the option of running on Tuesday. I haven't been running at all lately. To be honest since the half Marathon in Kinvara in March I'd say at most I've clocked up 20-30km at most, so lots of recovery! Bar the 5k with Ray none of this has been at pace.

The joke going out the door was that a 22 minute was the requested time on the chip.

Claregalway 5k route

I arrived at the venue, lots of people milling around chatting & warming up. Bumped into Paul and a couple of the guys from the club and we did a small warm up on the first hill. Normally I would just race without really bothering with much of a warm up but it does make a difference.

We made our way down to the start area, met lots of people on the way that knew me from the shop. I know this is weird but I checked out their running shoes and found that helped remember names. At this point I was planning to empty the bladder, but got caught up like a politician greeting the people. Was chatting to Matt Bidwell, a regular winner of anything 5 & 10k around the area. He had a win in Mayo at the weekend and was asking how the Lough Corrib spin went.

Next time, off we went, the first hill was early and I'm glad I took it fresh. I settled into a steady pace, suprisingly the legs felt good after the weekends efforts, and I was pushing along comfortably. The course was reasonably 'draggy' with what seemed more uphill that down. There was a definite fast downhill where you just had to let go and float your way down without trippin gover yourself.

About 2k in the bladder started to annoy me to the point where I'm trying to work out how much time I'd loose stopping and wether I could make that up again being lighter!

Normally I can pace well and will begin to kick on from half way in a race, usually simply stretching out a little more rather than a faster gait. I wasnt really up fo it and was holding off on this until I could get a view of where I was and what lay ahead. Around 4k I finally felt the competitive surge and started pushing on a bit. Definitely the lack of running was having an effect on my kick and I was looking to hold it to the line.

Bit of a sprint for the line on account of the heavy breathing behind me. I knew I wasn't suffering as much as he sounded so foot to floor. Crossed the line, hit the button 22.20 not too shabby! A PB for 5k, nice one.

Looking at the analysis I averaged 12.9kmph and my stride cadence was between 82-85 strides per minute. Lot done, more to do!

The best bit came when the chip times were posted, 22.14. Hope I get to do the next one!