10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Millstreet 5 Mile

1. Don’t Poke The Bear

I think it was a very bad idea to relentlessly taunt Viv for the last 2 years. It has been a full 2 years of relentless victories, 2 years of bad beatings. A lesser being would have given up but not Viv. To be honest I was more worried about Donal Coffey than Viv in Millstreet, I spent far more time this week taunting Donal than Viv. It turns out I was very wrong.

2. Ironman

I think that it is the ironman’s fault that I had two terrible blisters for today’s race. I got them from running in the ridiculous rain on Sunday. They are horrendous blisters, one was is on the hood of my second toe on my right foot, the other is at the top of the curve on the inside of my left foot. I did everything to fix them, I used Germolene to try and numb them up but they were terrible and very debilitating all week. It’s amazing I was able to run at all.

3. Warm Up

I think that I knew that I was in trouble during the warm up. I felt terrible when normally I feel tremendous. My blisters were hurting me every footstep both right and left foot. I ran with Donal Coffey because I believed that he was the only one that needed psyching out, I saw Viv but I let him off because I was very confident of administering a bad beating even with my badly damaged and blistered feet.

4. Where Do You Think You Got it all Wrong Today

I think that I got the first mile all wrong. I got very excited at the start because there were so many excellent runners there that I believed that I could beat. I immediately forgot about my terrible blisters and took off down the street at a pace that I can’t run anywhere except in a race. Kevin Maunsell came past after 100m but everyone else stayed behind even Michael. I even tried pushing the pace as I knew that it would be awful for Viv and the other Donal. I knew I was also annoying Michael too so that was good.

5. Train

I think that I knew I was in big trouble when we got to the train tracks at about two miles. I was still in the front group with Mikey, Mark Tim, John and John but I was getting much closer to the exit door. I wasn’t too worried as I was pretty sure that Viv and the other Donal were miles behind and no one ever makes time up in the last 3 miles of a 5 mile race.

6. Water Bottle Respect

I think I knew that the lads in the front group didn’t respect me when I didn’t get offered a water bottle just after two miles. They all looked so comfortable passing the water bottle around, John Meade looked like it was just another easy run, he was almost deliberately trying to look at ease, turning around offering the water to everyone, everyone except me.

7. Falling

I think that it is terrible the way that you get shelled from a group that you don’t belong to in a race. It feels like you are falling backwards. The third mile was very bad as the group disappeared around the many uphill corners. I could see that Tim O’Connor was next in line to leave the group so I focused on him. Then I heard those footsteps, those familiar footsteps from those Marathon Pace runs around Blackrock, I didn’t even have to look, I knew it was Viv, closing, closing rapidly, like a robot that had been preprogrammed by Ronan to destroy me.

8. Don’t Look Back at Vivian

I think that it was a big mistake to turn and look at Viv, I have never looked back in a race before. It took Viv until well into the fourth mile to finally catch up to me. When he got up to my shoulder I couldn’t resist checking that it was him so I looked behind. A very bad idea, my heart sank when I saw him with not a bead of sweat nor sign of any great difficulty on his face, what happened next was inevitable.

9. The Millstreet Massacre

I think that Viv must have prepared the bad beating that he administered on that final hill into the finish. It was dramatic in its ferocity, it was if he summoned every jib, every dig, every taunt from the last two years and used it as fuel for a 200m sprint. He just disappeared up the road, gone, as much as I tried to catch him it was pointless, it was over, beaten, badly, by Viv.

10. A Small Battle

I think that it was a very bad night. Because Viv beat me badly and all of the other lads who are much better than us turned up I came 8th. I won nothing, no envelopes, nothing. In the hall where I watched everyone collecting nice envelopes filled with money I considered total training reform, training properly, eating properly, doing everything properly. Then I thought about it again, this was just a single battle, the war is being won, Viv is well behind and Coffey was beaten very badly. There is no change required, it was just a blip, a minor blip, not to be repeated.