unironedman

The weather has been fine of late. Plenty of sunshine. But we still have that chill wind from the East, so Spring is on the subs bench, but it’s not yet on the pitch. It’s been busy at work; this is the time when everyone drags their old mower out of the shed for that first cut of the season, pulls the cord, and… nothing. A few splutters and a lot of cursing later and they’re off up to our hire shop with the mower in the boot. And on top of servicing and repairs, there are a lot of sales too, and of course, the regular hire of equipment.

Running continues. Managed 10k on Tuesday, which was something of a surprise. And not just the distance, but the pace too: a neat 5:44/km. Thursday was a more modest 5k along the trails by the river. All of which just left the longer run at the weekend.

Gary has been recuperating over the last month or so, but he was happy to chance a canal saunter, so we planned to head about 9am and get 20k in along the Deep Sinking.

As I drove past the Le Chéile Athletics Club track on Saturday afternoon, heading back to work from a delivery, I could see there was a run going on. I remembered that Anto was doing his famous 24 hour race meet. And along with that dollop of madness (setting off at midday on Saturday and running all the way through ’til midday on Sunday), he likes to throw in a 12 hour, a 6 hour, and a marathon or two. I’ve never taken part, and I’m not sure I want to. I didn’t think about it too much until a text arrived in from Gary. Anto was wondering if we’d pop around to the track on Sunday morning and do a few laps? Just for company.

And so, instead of the pleasant and shady Deep Sinking and the coolness of the canal, we arrived at the track around 8.30am, exchanged a few pleasantries, and set off. 1.56:59 later, I stepped off the track with a half-marathon completed. There’s not a lot to say about it, really. The sun was out, the wind was a little chilly, but overall, conditions were ideal. The track is excellent to run on. It was good to get another sub-two hour in the bag before the big day in a few weeks time. There will be one more longish run, but overall, three 27k runs are the longest I have managed. Not ideal prep, perhaps, for an ultra of about 40 miles, but it will have to do.

For the record, the winner was Jessie O’Connor, who racked up 577 laps for a total distance of 230.8k. Impressive run; he was going at a marginally better pace than us, and he was out on his feet for over 20 hours by the time we joined him.