10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Glanmire 4 Mile

1. Debadification

I think that I'm needing less debadification the more marathons that I run. Cork took very little, I was back running by Wednesday and felt only bad. By Saturday I was almost completely unbad and even did a double. I think the sun sped up the debadification. Burned off the badness.

2. Beethoven's Symphony No.9

I think that pink gin I drank in Costigans the night after the marathon has cured me of alcohol. It's been an effort to drink ever since. It was bad. Monday was very bad.

3. Casanova

I think Casanova Gelato is one of the best things in Cork. They have black cones. Yes black cones. Black cones are amazing. They definitely accelerate debadification. It's the charcoal. Adsorbs badness.

4. Dalí

I didn't think that Cork had clubs like Dalí. I'd never heard of Greg and Shane. John O'Connell is a small, big, big fan. Dalí has a very nice roof, Gaudiesque almost, I was way too sober due to that bloody pink gin. It's a bad sign when you're appreciating the architecture in a club.

5. Nutrition

I don't think diet matters the Saturday after a marathon. My Saturday diet was rice cakes, ciabatta toast with apricot jam, a croissant, a green smoothie, melon and berry gelato in a black cone, a blueberry skyr, a pizza bianca, some stonewell cider, two bags of walkers and more rice cakes. I had lots of coffee too and I took my tablets with a yakult. I think I ate all of the colours of the rainbow so it's ok.

6. Meade

I was really hoping not to see John Meade this morning. I had stupidly reminded him about the race via email during the week, he replied but due to the length of the reply and many european languages used in the reply I was unsure of his intentions regarding the race. John Meade is impossible to beat mainly because he's John Meade. You just look at him and go I can't beat him, he's John Meade. Conor can beat him, but he's Conor.

7. Pink

I think I looked really fantastic today. I found a pair of pink Fila sunglasses in TK Maxx a few weeks ago for €12, they were reduced from €80 apparently. I had to buy them because they match my pink singlet perfectly. It's an excellent outfit.

8. Recorrido

I think I really like that route. It's the perfect combination of mainly flat with a nice little kicker of hill at 2-3 miles so that John Meade could drop me at a respectable point in the race. Plus I could jog to the start from my house. The whole race was ridiculously well organised, chip timed from start to finish. I knew it would be when Niall was involved. It deserved more than a battle between me and Meade. Conor and Meade would have been better.

9. Juan Manuel Fangio

I think Meade only beat me by 10 seconds which was excellent although there was an element of John winning at the slowest possible speed. It's nice to think that I'm almost as good as John Meade.

10. Idiot

I think I'm probably officially an idiot after running a race the week after a marathon. I know it's not perfect, I know I should have taken many weeks off, I know, I know, I know I'll probably regret it, I’m sorry, but it was fun and it was a local race. You can't always be perfect. Perfection isn't fun.