10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Pfizer 6 Mile

1. Great Country

I think that Ireland is the best country in the world for running. We are very lucky, never mind the whingers. There is no place on earth that in May you can have ideal conditions for running at 8pm in the evening for €5 with chip timing. Thank god for the BHAA.

2. AlphaFly 3s

I think that I would have won the race easily if An Post had delivered my AlphaFlys for my birthday on my birthday. Instead they were stuck below in the depot in Little Island. Everyone knows that improvements in running come from buying new shoes, not training for years, it’s buying new shoes, that’s the key. That’s why you’ll see so many different varieties on the startline, everyone is looking for that shoe. That shoe for me is going to be the AlphaFly 3 I know it is, I can feel the PB coming.

3. Warm Up

I think someday I will get to a BHAA race more than 30 minutes before the start and get some sort of decent warm up in. I get very anxious about short warmups because it means that I will be well short of mileage for my Strava graph for the week. The anxiety was even worse for this race because I had to queue for a bathroom 10 minutes before the race which cost me even more all-important mileage.

4. Asics Frontrunner

I think that I would make a great Asics Frontrunner as I like leading for the first mile so the Instagram content from races would be excellent and write itself. The first mile of the race was a good bit downhill so I ran it as hard as I could which isn’t very fast but was enough to drag the competition. Unfortunately, there was quiet a bit of competition, Barry Twohig, Conor, Tadhg and Darragh. Two Barrs, two Leevales and a Bweeng.

5. Stay Ahead

I think that I did well to stay in the lead for the first two miles. I wanted to stay in the lead until the park as I knew that whoever was in front around the park would be able to control the pace. Going up over the bridge across to Haulbowline, Barry who’s AlphaFlys were on his feet and not in Little Island briefly took the lead but I got it back on the otherside of the bridge as it went downhill again.

6. Parklife

I think that we have been very lucky at every race that has gone around the Haulbowline Park. Every time it has been remarkably calm and no one has been blown into the sea. It was very pleasant leading the group around the park knowing that there was no space for anyone to pass so my lead remained unthreatened.

7. Over the Bridge

I think that I will have to get better at running over bridges. Every time the race went up over a bridge I lost the lead. On the way out of the park I lost the lead of the group to Conor who was probably horrified at still being in the same group as me 3 miles into a race. I was anticipating being dropped from the group at this point but on the other side of the bridge I was able to get onto the back of the group of five and hide behind Tadgh who is the perfect person for me to run behind in a race as he is the only person in elite level local Cork club BHAA running who is as tall as me.

8. Lead Out Man

I think that I had only one chance to win the race and that was to try and get some bit of a gap before the mile long climb back to the finish began. As we went through Ringaskiddy village I went to the front of the group and tried to push the pace as hard as I could. It was a pointless attack and served only to set Darragh and Barry up for their mile long uphill sprint to the finish.

9. Battle of Big Hill

I think that it was very impressive to watch Darragh fly off up the hill. He made us all look terrible on that last hill, I was made to look most terrible as a huge gap opened with only 400m of the hill gone. Barry went after him in his AlphaFlys with Conor hot on his heels. I was left with Tadhg to battle for the all important 4th position and no prize. Tadgh in Vapofly3s that were the same colour as Barry’s AlphaFlys proved impossible to catch on the hill and emerged victorious in the battle for first person with no prize.

10. Easy Four Miles

I think that it’s interesting how people experience the same race. I thought that I had made the first four miles hard and entirely miserable for the group with my Asics Frontrunning but to Darragh the first four miles was nice and slow. I suppose it must have been relatively slow as Darragh and Barry’s fastest miles of the race were the final uphill mile with my slowest mile the same mile. Then to make it worse Tadhg reminded me that it was the first time that he had beaten me. Those AlphaFly 3s had better be good.