10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The SMRC 10k in Limerick

1. Cross Country

I think I would have preferred to have run a cross country race today, but I’ve been banned from running them for being too excellent. I don’t think this is fair. It should just be Cork 6k, Cork 8k, Cork 10k XC championships, none of this novice, intermediate nonsense. There aren’t enough XC races. More XC. More.

2. Anything but a Long Run

I think I had to do a race today for the sake of my own head, I don’t think I’d have managed a long run. I’d have been moaning a lot. Racing is much more fun.

3. A Sunday in Hell

I think I’ve forgotten that I used to be one of those cyclists in the sportives that block the roads every Sunday. I got caught in the middle of one outside Hospital. It’s a lot more fun if you’re on a bike and not in a car trying to get to Limerick. I know what it’s like so I was very patient.

4. Braces

I think my warm up brought back bad memories. I ran out passed the Orthodontist where I got my braces when I was a child. It looked exactly the same, exactly. I think Limerick peaked in 2002.

5. Kilometer 0

I think it was very clever of the race organizers to have a start line that was only visible to the race organizers. No one could line up ahead of the start line like they normally do because they didn’t know where it was with out the organizer. It really works.

6. Strides

I think I knew I couldn’t win the race at the start. I was one of only three guys doing strides before the race. I can normally only win if I’m the only person doing strides. This rule has never been wrong.

7. Wandering Thoughts

I think I’ll have to get better at concentrating in races, after about 6k I was really bored. If I had my phone I’d have checked Twitter for cat videos. Instead I started thinking about what would happen if the prize money in races was directly related to the number of people in the races. Then I started thinking about the prize money for the race that I was running in so I started concentrating again.

8. The Sprint

I think I made an excellent sprint today. I saw Mark Walsh do this choppy hand thing at the end of races so I thought about that when I got to 500m to go. It really works. I ran really fast and ran away from Gareth. I kind of felt bad because I’d basically sat on him for 6k but that’s capitalism for you.

9. Keep Cup

I think it was great that the race organizers were hipster enough to arrange keep cups for everyone after the race. It’s like the one that I have for my coffee except that it doesn’t have a lid. I think I was meant to give it back but I liked it so I took it home.

10. Back Baller

I think it is a miracle that I still don’t have a back baller. I have run countless races and I have somehow managed to avoid winning one. Instead I got a brown envelope containing lovely money. At least the money paid for massage. Some day, some day I’ll win a back baller.