10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Munster Senior XC

1. Weddings

I think that Munster Cross Country races are a bit like a wedding. No one is really sure what time the race is going to start. They give you the start time of the first juvenile race but after that it’s up to you to figure it out. You’re normally safe enough if you get there by 1.30pm. I did. It started at 2.45pm. Not too bad.

2. Blindboy

I think I picked a suitable Blindboy podcast to listed to on the drive up. It was the one about the Volcano in 1816 that changed the history of art. The weather on the way up was exactly like the year without a summer. Big dark black clouds, very angry, kind of ominous. If I was Conor I would have painted an excellent painting.

3. Pink Laces

I think my new spikes are my favourite pair of spikes ever. They are orange like my sunglasses and have pink laces like my sunglasses. They’re very lovely, very flash, very bright. Mark said that you could only get away with them at an NCAA cross country. I think I pulled them off.

4. Drought

I think the drought in the summer must have made the fields very thirsty. The fields will drink any amount of rain. Despite the miserable weather for what seems like forever the Tipperary ground was rock hard. I like the ground like this, with a little bit of bite.

5. Preliminary Disease

I think I have a preliminary disease, I’m not actually sick but my throat is tickly and my nose is running. It’s like my body is fighting the disease and winning but the battle is not over yet. I hope my body wins, I don’t like diseases.

6. Know your Station

I think the start of the race was very very fast. I tried to get to the front but failed very badly. I’m just not good enough to lead a Munster Senior, I’m only County leading level.

7. 6 minutes

I think the guys at the front were going too fast. The guy with the mic said that they went through 2k in 6 minutes, I wasn’t too far behind them. That’s too fast. I felt very bad.

8. A Lot of Running Left

I think that the guy with the mic didn’t need to tell us that we had a lot of running left with 3 laps to go. It’s a horrible part of the race, the adrenaline is gone, Barry Donovan is gone past and you kind of know where you’re going to finish except that you still have 60% of the misery and pain left to go. It’s kind of pointless, we should all just have stopped after two laps, would have been the same.

9. Togher

I think it’s great that Togher are back fielding strong teams again, they just pipped us for third team. We need more teams, if the Barr’s got back too it would be like old days a proper war. I would have liked a shiny bronze medal. I like medals but medals only mean something if you have to win them. Togher won their’s, we didn’t. East Cork hammered both of us.

10. Badly Beaten

I think I prefer racing Michael Herlihy and John Meade. I’d love to have beaten both of them today, I have a chance in the XC, I couldn’t even beat Mark Walsh today so I was probably better off that they weren’t racing. Next time, next time I’ll beat them all.