I’ve been running this race for the past 2 years, and I find it a nice one to finish off the season with.
Given my recent injury from the last race I was unsure if I’d put in enough training for this last official run, but when morning came I felt good and the weather was fine too, so no excuses I had to be up for this run.
There was a super crowd at the start location, but I grabbed a nice spot by the timing van, which meant that people had to file back towards the back of the starting pack once everyone was called to the line. Some lady, quite possibly the Major of Clonmel said a few words at the start which for the life of me I couldn’t hear and I was near the front !!!!
Anyway under starts orders and as per usual the race started off at a great pace, but I really felt steady in the first few kilometres and in fact the incline at the Poppy Fields didn’t faze me at all, so it’s from here I knew I was up for this race.
There’s a good bit of down hill and flat from this point so kept the steady pace up, until I came to the dreaded long up hill stint on the Marlfield Road ! Once again the mental block kicked in, I must find a way around this, but my pace dropped way off on this hill. Got over the crest and it still took me a little while to truly get back on pace and then I just got it stuck in my mind that there was some one right behind me, right off my shoulder and it drove me on.
The last few km’s were great, I felt the pressure of someone behind me and I just didn’t want to be passed and so it proved to the line, the chap behind finished just 6 seconds behind.
Overall I finished in a time of 43:24, which placed me in 12th place … holy crap I’m over the moon with that result, given there were over 270 runners/joggers/walkers. The time was 2:22 quicker than last year, which again I have to say I’m really happy with.
Time to ramp down the training a little, take a break and aim for new start in December.