Practice

As my next race is a marathon, I thought I'd get a long run in this weekend. As I had agreed to join the club for the County Novice & Masters Cross Country in Conna on Sunday my long run would have to be today. To add a bit of a challenge I thought i'd test my form and try out a six mile cut-in to a sub-3 hour Marathon Pace and keep the pace going for a few miles. Not the best idea perhaps as my form would surely be compromised by last Sunday's race and I wouldn't be giving myself the best chance for the cross country tomorrow but!...............nah i've no excuse really.....I just wanted to do this.

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The plan was to cover the first mile in 7:10 and reduce the pace by 5 seconds for subsequent miles until I was running 6:40 for mile 7 and maintain than pace for up to 10 miles!!! Yeah I wasn't thinking too clearly on that one. I headed out shortly after 8 having spend the previous 2 hours watching Ireland being outplayed by Wales in the Rugby World Cup Quarter Final. My route into town via the Model Farm Road along the Quays and out the Straight Road, with a few diversions around Ballincollig was reasonably flat. My fueling consisted of a pre-run coffee, a 200ml bottle of water (didn't want to carry anything heavier) and a few gels in my pocket.

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The first 6 miles went reasonably well, if not slightly ahead of pace, although I had to concentrate on keeping pace on some of the rises on the Model Farm Road. I took the HR monitor to see if the gradual increase in pace would see a more controlled rise in HR - unfortunately halfway into mile 1 the Garmin was already showing 199 and did not come good until the end of mile 3. By the time I hit the start of mile 7 I was on a gentle drop towards Dennehys Cross, which was a more gentle introduction to the first "MP" mile. I took my only gel and a swig of water at this stage. The next few miles went reasonably well despite the dodging in and out of early moring traffic along the City Quays and soon I was heading out of town with 10 miles behind me. I knew I wouldn't keep the pace up for another 6 miles and settled on cutting back after 13.11 - 7.11 miles @ MP. Out the Mardyke and onto the Straight Road @ Mile 11, at this stage looking forward to reaching 13.11, struggling to keep the pace for those last 2 miles.

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On reaching the HM mark I cut the pace back towards 7:30 for the journey home, extending my route to get 20 miles in. With a sniff of the finish I dropped the pace back down to 6:40 for the final mile home. Hope there's something left for running around a farmers field tomorrow.

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