Cork BHAA Stryker 4 Mile
/10 Things I Think About The Cork BHAA Stryker 4 Mile 2022
1. 2006
I think that back in 2006 and this might have been the first BHAA race that I ever ran. It is difficult to believe that I’ve been running these for 16 years. I look way too young and tanned to have been running BHAA races for 16 years. I remember the course was almost identical back then just it started by the church taking and finished in the town. We got a lovely light blue t-shirt which I wore for about 10 years. I didn’t take any t-shirt this time.
2. Why am I Mad?
I think that it is very odd that people think that I am mad for racing the week after a marathon. I don’t think that I am mad at all. I think other people are mad. I see people on Strava do stuff that is way madder than what I do but they never race. Racing is much better than training. There should be rule that you can’t go more than a month with out racing if you aren’t injured otherwise you get banned from racing.
3. Original Magic Shoes
I think that I was never so happy as when I saw the original Next%s appear on the Nike website. It was like a dream come through. They are definitely the original and best magic shoes. They feel bouncier than all the other ones, even the later colours of the Next% are not as good. The ones I got must have been sitting in a warehouse somewhere for the last three years as the box was a bit dusty but they feel so great. I have five pairs now, that should keep me going for a few years.
4. Running Paradise
I think that it is amazing how the cyclepaths around Carrigtohill magically appeared the moment I no longer had to go to the factory for work. For years and years there was nothing but goat tracks around Carrigtohill to run on, you’d do well to make a five mile loop, then we were all sent home forever and when I return the place is a running paradise with links to Glounthaune and Little Island. It is amazing, we should all continue to vote for the Green Party.
5. False Start
I think that the start of the race was a bit chaotic. It is a bad idea to repeatedly test the starting sound which is working perfectly while 600 people are waiting to run. Once we got going I felt all of the badness from the marathon reawaken in my legs. Eric and Denis took off in the lead but it looked like they weren’t doing what they normally do so I should have been able to keep up with them but I couldn’t. Instead, I had to stay back with James McCarthy and a fella in a black singlet who I didn’t know.
6. Established Order
I think that it is very motivating when there is someone you don’t know up ahead of you in a race. Once we turned left at the deadly junction in the village I started to feel less bad. Denis and Eric were just ahead with a fella I didn’t know in between. I have an established order of runners in my head and it is upsetting to me when a race doesn’t play out in accordance with this order. To have someone you don’t know or recognize ahead means you are probably running terribly. This helped greatly as I used the hatred to run up the hill by the ludicrously located train station to pass the fella I didn’t know.
7. Progress
I think that I ran the second and third mile of the race excellently. I was probably the winner of the second and third miles. Once we turned left onto the road where you normally can’t run for fear of being mowed down by a fella in an Audi or BMW estate who is late for a vital morning meeting. I started to make excellent progress. I had dispatched the fella I didn’t know which reduced my worry about the terribleness of the potential time and began working on beating James McCarthy who I quickly passed on the downhill because I’m definitely one of the most excellent runners at downhills.
8. Morning Runs
I think that it helps to have run part of a race over and over again during easy runs. When we turned left for the third time I was onto a stretch of road that I used to run every morning before working from home became a thing. I was in third place within sight of Denis who appeared to be comfortable in the lead and Eric who I thought I could catch. I could hear James McCarthy just behind so I was worried about him as he is a recent convert to magic shoes. If he had of been in his old suction boots I’d have destroyed him.
9. King of Ballintotis
I think that I shouldn’t be too surprised that the King of Ballintotis schooled me in the last 100m of the race. When we turned left for the fourth and final time out onto the Ballyseedy road I felt I had a chance of beating James. I got to the wooded section with the broken up gravel still in third although I could hear him closing so I put in the last of the surges that annoy Michael Herlihy at the farm so much. I thought this had finished him but when we emerged out onto the footpath again a white singlet aggressively and authoritatively brushed passed in a sort of I can’t be beaten by you way. I gave up then and ran the last 50m quite slowly condemned to another fourth place and probably no prize.
10. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
I think that my finishing position is a good example of statistics. You could try and teach someone about sampling and sample sizes by it. Generally, in a sample of 500 runners I am about the fourth best runner. This has been proven too many times. If the sample size reduces to say 150 like in Doneraile then I have a good chance of being first. But like sampling just because there are only 50 people in a race like in Liscarroll it doesn’t mean that I will be first. That’s why you need to run lots of races and take lots of samples to make sure you get a good estimate of the actual result which is normally fourth when the race is kind of big. See running is all about statistics.
