Need for speed



Three weeks ago I decided to kick the habit of running marathons, and I already feel like it’s one of the best decisions that I’ve made.

The marathon is a great event, and this is by no means goodbye forever. But I've honed in on my goal: to reach towards my potential as an amatuer runner and to take maximum enjoyment from the sport. And I’ve come to realise that the best way for me to progress towards this goal is to take a step back from marathons for a year or two, and instead train for speed.

As I’ve said in earlier posts: in order to run a fast marathon, one first needs to run a fast 10km. In order to run a fast 10km, you first need to run a fast 5km (note: Patrick Makau ran a WR time of 2:03:38 yesterday which is average 14:40 per 5km pace). You can follow this logic right down to middle-distance speed. In other words, you could argue that raw speed is a foundation, and in fact a pre-requisite, for a fast marathon. This is why most of the top marathoners have a track background. Speed is only one piece of the jigsaw puzzle. The other, more obvious pillar, is endurance.

Unfortunately the majority of us long-distance runners, with our modest athletic CVs (and in particular, without a background in track running), are at a significant disadvantage. Because whether we like it or not, time-trials over short distances are usually a good indicator of what we are capable of running over marathon distance (with the right training).

For example, if a runner is not capable of running under 19 minutes for the 5km (3:48 min/km) at a given point in time then he/she will have difficulty breaking 3 hours (4:17 min/km) over the marathon distance (without improvement). This is for the simple reason that, even with ample endurance, the required marathon pace would feel 'uncomfortably fast' and will probably push him or her into the anaerobic zone too early in the race (most likely blowing hard and running out of steam with a good way left to go).

With this in mind, it makes sense for me to shelve the marathon away as a long term target. Or to put another way: 'learn to walk (run fast over short distances) before I run (marathons)'. Instead, I've plotted out a race plan for the season, comprising of shorter distance races on the road, hills, track and cross country. And since August I've training towards shorter races by running these types of sessions:

8x1km off 90 seconds
12x400m off 60 seconds or short jog recovery
10x800m off 60/90 seconds
5x1 mile off 2 minutes
30 minute tempo run
10x300m off 60 seconds or jog recovery
Short hill repeats (30 or 60 second)

It already seems to be working since I already ran a 5km P.B (15:53) over the weekend on the back of a big week of training. Plenty of work still to be done. Just need to focus on training smart: consistency and quality. The results will come.

Copenhagen for runners and non-runners

On the weekend Alison and I went to Copenhagen to attend a wedding. This was going to be a complex balancing act involving the following activities:

• Running training
• Watching the rugby world cup inaugural weekend in a country that has not heard of rugby
• Attending wedding and associated activities
• Sightseeing

In order to prepare myself for this plethora of events and exercises, I undertook to (a) seek out an antipodean establishment where I could watch live Rugby World cup matches in the morning - we found one called ‘the Southern Cross’ (b) download a Copenhagen tourist information Iphone Application – simple (c) find out where we needed to be and at what time for various wedding events happening throughout the weekend and lock them into Google maps app on Iphone and (d) find some good places to run.

The later three bullet points on the list sorted themselves out. The wedding (of Alison’s friend Caoimhe and her Danish partner Thomas) was a fun-filled day involving meeting lots of friendly intelligent folk and even included a canal boat cruise around Copenhagen, which to an extent also covered off bullet point number four in the list. Here is Alison at Nyhaven.















I was thinking about how cool Danish people are. But then it occurred to me that I may have just met lots of ‘above average coolness’ Danish people, since everyone at the wedding was friends with Caoimhe and Thomas who are cool themselves, and who are friends with my cool girlfriend Alison. Perhaps my observable sample size was too small and not representative of the population. But I am told that this coolness phenomenon is widespread in the city. One thing that is clear is that Danish people all speak fluent English, which makes communication easy for the linguistically challenged. It also enables more enriching conversation with local people, than what you might experience in certain Southern European cities.

Copenhagen is a nice place: combining the grandeur and seriousness of the great Northern European cities (Berlin and Warsaw) with some of the charm and quaint architecture of its cousins to the distant South (Paris and Barcelona). The beautiful people of Copenhagen whizz around on their bikes, with their abundance of wealth and the backing of the World’s most generous social security system, and seem happy to be living there. The city is clean and sophisticated. If Copenhagen were a person, he would look down his nose at the reckless abandonment (partying) that is common on the streets of many of its Anglicized or Spanish counterparts. I suppose that’s why you don’t find many Danish people in Temple Bar on a Saturday night.

The retro bikes and hip style of outfits adorned by people on the street hints at an edginess that doesn’t seem to manifest itself in the bars and cafes throughout the city (with the obvious exception of Christiana, which seems quite culturally and geographically detached from the city). Initial impressions after two short visits have been that Copenhagen is an understated city. I reserve my judgment on that because I suspect that more time would be required in order to ‘discover Copenhagen’.

One’s experience of the city can be somewhat overwhelmed by its expense. We might have enjoyed the broad range of culinary experiences and beers on offer more if it weren’t for the sour taste inevitably left in our mouths by the bill. Once you get your head around the conversion between Euro and Danish Kroner, you all of a sudden feel like you’re being robbed every time you step into a shop, bar or restaurant. This frustration came to a head on our final morning in the city when I was charged the equivalent in Kroner of €7 for an orange juice in an Irish bar while watching Wales v South Africa. I was displeased, even before Wales handed the game to the Boks on a plate.

Anyway, I found some good places to run in Copenhagen:

The Soern (lakes)

There are five adjacent man-made lakes that form a part-circle around North-western Copenhagen. It starts in Vesterbro and finishes in Osterbro. Soern looks like this from the sky:














There is a well-beaten gravel path circling the lake/s, which seem to be very popular with the locals for walking with strollers, cycling, and running. The lakes themselves, along with the surrounding area is picturesque, and the trail is a pleasure to run around. Lots of trees and greenery, and there even a few playgrounds and cafes/bars on the lake-edge if you feel like stopping for a Carlsberg mid-run. This is one of my favourite runs. Here is what it looks like lakeside:















Faelledparken 

This is a park at the north-eastern end of the five lakes in Osterbro. It is a nice place to run, and has a decent 2km loop around it on wide gravel path. Nice place for intervals or a pace run. Plenty of people around, but not too many that they get in the way.

Amagerfaelled (park)

In radical contrast to the sculptured and well maintained Faelledparken in the North, this place is an overgrown vegetative wasteland of sorts in the southern flank of Copenhagen. While Amagerfaelled park is by no means pretty, it is good for running in because it is large and has a more extensive network of trails throughout.

I jogged to the Park from the city centre for a scheduled 25 minute pace run. Soon after I started I followed a trail around a corner onto a main path and found myself in the middle of an organised race. I was somewhere near the back of a dispersed field, and I spent the rest of my pace run (at 3:33 min/km pace) working my way up the field. Certainly kept things interesting. 

The river near Amagerfaelled is a good spot for jogging too.

If I had more time I would explore the canals and trails behind Christiana, because I think there might be some interesting running routes there.

Irish National half marathon champs race report

Event: National half marathon championships
Location: Waterford
Distance: 21.1km / 13.1 miles
Time: 1:12:15
Pace: 5:31 min/mile 3:26 min/km
Speed: 17.5 km/h

Nerves were running high on Saturday morning when 800 odd runners took to the streets of Waterford for the Irish national half marathon championships. Conditions were good for racing: 11° cloud and drizzle and nothing but a light breeze. The well-established course takes in a loop through the Waterford town centre then follows an ‘out-and-back’ route along the Tramore road. The road is a quality surface and, although undulating, the route is ‘PB friendly’.

My main goal was to run 72:00, which is 5:30 min/mile or 3:25 min/km pace, or 17.6km/h. That would mean running through 5km at 17 minutes, 10km at 34 minutes, 10 miles at 55 minutes. And then just as fast as I can sustain for the final 3 miles (5km). My secondary (and more optimistic) goal was to beat my club mate, Paul Fleming. Despite having being well-beaten by Paul last week in the Tinryland 4 mile race, I thought that I might have an improved chance of beating him over the longer course. Besides, I figured he’d be good to keep within my sights because he would probably run somewhere around my goal time, if not a bit quicker, and would be likely to run a steady and smart race.

The pace was aggressive from the start. The first mile felt good, if not slightly downhill. When I say ‘good’, I mean that the world was going by quickly (fast pace) but on this particular day it felt comfortable. No heavy breathing and no complaints from the legs. Phew. At the 1 mile mark the clock read 5:12. Significantly faster than target pace, but my lungs seemed to be unaware of this so I figured that it was ok. Despite the fast pace, Paul was still about 10 metres ahead of me so I figured that this was a good place to be.

Meanwhile up front, Brian Maher took the early lead behind the pace car, closely followed by my Rathfarnham club-mate Sean Hehir and Barry Minnock. Another club-mate, Mark Ryan, sat in behind them. For the first couple of miles I enjoyed race commentary broadcasted from the loud speakers on the roof of the pace car. I eagerly listened and was silently willing on my club-mates until they, along with the speaking car, disappeared off into the distance. I supposed that in any case, it was better for me to concentrate on my own race than the battle up front.

The Garmin read 16:40 at the 5km mark, which meant that I was 20 seconds ahead of schedule. On the other hand, I knew that the next part of the route was the hilliest and toughest, so it would be good to have that time buffer in the bank. At around this time I was running on my own about 15 metres behind Paul’s pack. Although the breeze was not strong, it would still be easier to maintain this pace in a group. The problem was that they were really moving, and the additional effort involved in catching them would be risky. I knew I could catch up with them, but I thought that closing the gap might draw on my reserves and leave me in debt later in the race.

Fortunately a couple of lads pulled up beside me. Declan Power from Clonliffe and Cathal O’Connell from St Finbarr’s Athletics Club. Declan gestured ahead and said ‘let’s close the gap’. I wasn’t feeling confident about the push so I just went back to concentrating on my own comfortable pace. But reassuringly, after several minutes I found myself next to Declan on the back of the group. Unfortunately at the same time Paul Fleming pushed off the front of the group with a few other runners. I kept it steady and let them go, saving my energy for the upcoming hills and the final miles. When we hit the main hill (off the Tramore Road, up the lane onto the back road section) at around the 5 mile mark, the group seemed to break up around us.

I rolled over 10km at 33:50, which indicated that the hills had slowed the pace somewhat. I wasn’t concerned because I running the same pace as the guys around me. So I reckoned that the drop in pace was mostly to do with the terrain.

After seven miles the course turns back onto the Tramore Road towards the start finish line in Waterford – the home leg. A pang of fatigue struck me at this turn, made worse by the uphill drag. Within sixty seconds I was wishing away the miles. By the time we reached the 8 mile mark I was wondering how I was going to keep this up for another 5 miles. I convinced myself to just hang in there with the three lads. The struggle continued and at the 10 mile marker I began to feel a bit closer to home. I was encouraged to see my Garmin reading 54.57 as I passed the sign, since that meant I was still under 5:30 average mile pace. I realised that despite feeling very tired, I had managed to sustain a decent pace for the previous two miles. All of a sudden seemed plausible that I might hang on, even though it was clearly going to hurt.

At this stage I wasn’t much interested in racing the guys around me. I was much more interested in holding it together until the finish line. The guys around me were merely acting as pace indicators, and surprisingly I was doing ok (except that Declan Power had pushed ahead about 40 metres).

Once I hit 12 miles I knew I was going to make the finish line because I still felt just the same as I did at 10 miles. Tired. So I turned my attention back to the actual race. After all, this was a championship race and my coach, Adam Jones, always says that every place counts. I boldly decided to push ahead of the lads whom I was running with, because I wanted to avoid a sprint finish by putting a gap on them now. Unfortunately after putting a gap of five metres on them, I quickly fatigued and decided that a sprint finish might be easier after all. The three lads caught me back up, sat behind for a bit, and then all passed me with half a mile (800m) to go. Just the kind of confidence booster that I needed at this point.

The finish line is on the athletics track at the Waterford football stadium, and the last 200 metres of the race is around the track. My legs felt ok but after my failed pre-emptive strike and a bout of dizziness approaching the gate for the stadium, my confidence had taken a hit. But a few things happened that re-ignited my confidence. (1) One of the lads looked around to see if there was anyone behind us (which I perceived as a weakness/lack of confidence) (2) we hit the track (normally track racing is faster so all of a sudden I felt like I was actually running well within myself) and (3) I saw the finish line at the opposite end of the track. I recalled the 200 metre repeats that I ran with club mates Louis and Greg on Thursday, and thought ‘just one more 200m is all I need now’.

I bolted on the rubber and this time thankfully managed to make a more decisive move. I passed two lads on the outside of the corner and hammered down the straight so as not to encourage a late challenge, not letting up until I was safely across the finish line. PB. Close enough to target time. Pints.

High altitude training in the French Pyrenees

After a week of hard training combined with eating and drinking too much in Paris, I said goodbye to Alison and took a long train ride down to the French Pyrenees, to a small village in the clouds called Font Romeu. The plan was to meet my club mates Sean, Kevin, Brian and Louis for a week of high altitude training.

The train journey in itself was quite an adventure, involving catching three trains and 9 hours of travel time from Paris. The final two hour train journey was on an alpine railway line that precariously wound its way up through the mountains to Font Romeu. I elected to sit on an ‘outdoor carriage’, which had no roof or windows. It turned out that this train ride was actually a tourist attraction - nobody else on the train had luggage and everybody else had a camera. It was quite a buzz, particularly the vertigo experienced when crossing one of many deep canyons on the awesome viaducts, with nothing more than a handrail between you and the deep valley below.

Font Romeu falls somewhere between being a quaint village and a bustling town/ski station. It is fairly quiet at this time of year (summer), but the concentration of hotels and apartment complexes hint that the place has a different vibe during the winter ski season. During the summer you’ll find mostly athletes and some hikers/families floating around. There isn’t a lot to do in Font Romeu, other than to train, eat croissants, and to visit one of the many outdoor sports stores and pay extortionate prices for mountain running gear. In other words, there are few distractions and it’s the perfect place to go for a training camp.

We met and trained with a number of athletes who were visiting from the UK and Ireland. Including Joe McAlister from Belfast, Gary Thornton from Galway, Steve Vernon and a few other guys and girls from Manchester. Though these lads are international-class athletes, so keeping up with them was difficult enough even during their supposed ‘easy runs’. On the hard runs we would start together and then the group would split during the run.

For anyone interested in training in Font Romeu, here are a few things to know before you go:

• Fly to Carcassonne or Perpignan (in the South of France) or Barcelona or Girona (in Spain). Font Romeu is less than two hours drive from any of these places.
• Unfortunately hiring a car is almost essential, since many of the best running locations are a ten or fifteen minute drive from Font Romeu village.
• Eating out in Font Romeu is not cheap and you might not end up eating what you wanted (if you don’t speak French). So it’s probably better to stay in an apartment rather than a hotel. That way you can make your own meals and dine in at least some of the time.
• Apartments tend to be fairly compact, though cheap. Our apartment ‘slept four’ but that actually meant that there was a bunk and a double bed. Four was a crowd, but the company was good and at €15 per person per night you can’t complain.
• There is a decent supermarket in Font Romeu where you can stock up on whatever supplies you need. And at least two even better supermarkets within five minutes drive.
  

Places to train




















Lac de Matemale / Los Angles: Just 15 minutes drive from Font Romeu lies the lake which is surrounded by both flat and hilly forest trails (depending on what you’re looking for on a given day) and provides the perfect environment for laying down some base work. This is also a good place for sessions, because there are more flatter trails than most other places in the area.

Note that Lac de Matemale is located at an altitude of only 1550 metres, so it is a good place to acclimatize over the first few days. But even running steadily at this altitude is noticeably tougher than running at sea level. The shortest trail around the lake is 5 miles, but this can be extended to at least 13 miles by running further out into the forest that lies between the dam and Los Angles. There are several miles of trails at the dam end of the lake alone that can keep you busy without needing to circle the lake.

After your run, I would suggest taking a dip in the lake at the populated beach area on the Los Angles village side. The water is very fresh and is not too cold. You can also hire kayaks, sail boats and wind surfers here (if you have any energy left) and get some lunch from the kiosk.

The national centre for altitude training (track and swimming pool): This facility is located beside the village at 1850 metres altitude. The track is decent and you’ll see plenty of other athletes around. To give you an idea of the affect of the altitude. We ran a set of 6x1 mile intervals on the track and my splits were 20 seconds slower than they had been the previous week in Paris.

Pyrenees 2000 (1700 metres altitude) – this is a forested area located ten minutes drive from Font Romeu on the main road leading to Los Angles. Here it is on google maps. There are marked loops through the forest, which would be hard to follow without a map or a leader who is familiar with the routes. Hopefully your group leader is not sub-14 minute 5km runners, like ours were (either hang on to the leaders or try to find your own way out)

The plateau – potentially the most interesting and impressive area to run in the area. We were lead by the UK lads from the circular car park (which has a 400m long circle line painted around it) up the steep ski slope to a plateau at 2100 metres altitude. Up here there are a network of trails that run through scrub and sections of scattered low forest dense. From here you have an excellent view of the surrounding mountains while you run. That may be why I tripped on a stone and face-planted in the dirt (cutting my knee up pretty bad). You'll find it only about five minutes uphill drive from Font Romeu. Follow the Sola de la Calma Est road up to the car park and run up to the platue from there.

Once again, you can probably just follow your nose around these trails for a few easy miles, but it helps to be lead by someone who knows where they’re going because it can be tricky to find your way from the plateau back to the car (since the car park is below the plateau).

Mountain trails – there are loads of mountain trails around that you might like to explore. We might’ve done if we were there for longer, and if we were training for a hill race rather than a flat road race. They'd be fairly steep. You can buy maps at the local stores.

Lessons:

• Quite a few of the lads I met there had a track background (plenty of speed) and are now running longer races, with training focused mainly on mileage and building a base. That means running very few actual speed sessions, but instead lots of miles at steady pace (as distinct from easy pace). But I suppose they already have the speed in the legs, so are afforded the luxury of almost entirely working on endurance base.
• Progression runs (where you start slowly and increase the pace each mile) seemed popular, and are probably worth introducing into a training program.
• Re-emphasised the importance of marathon pace runs when training for marathon. Second most important piece of the puzzle after the Sunday long run.
• It took six days to start feeling more comfortable up at this altitude, and then the next day we left. It just meant that for the first six days the easy runs were not particularly easy. Hard runs were slow, as in you’ll feel like you’re running 3:30 min/km pace but you’re actually running 3:50 min/km pace – hard to get your head around.
  

Running circles around Paris

Everyone knows that Paris has a lot to offer as a tourist destination. But who would have thought that it would be such a good place to train for a half marathon.

Alison I spent a week taking in the sights and sounds of Paris, at which time I was also in full training for the Irish National Half Marathon Championships (to take place on Saturday 3 September in Waterford). Sometimes it can be difficult to fit training in around sightseeing activities when abroad. Particularly in large and busy cities, where the options for suitable running routes can be limited.

But with the help of the Iphone, google maps, and the velib city bikes scheme (so that Alison could come adventuring with me), Alison and I industriously explored the city and uncovered some excellent running routes and facilities that made training easier. We were also assisted, in no small part, by this useful website about running in Paris. I didn’t get a chance to check out all of the suggested running locations that I’d heard about (because I was busy running track sessions), but I was impressed with the routes that I ran.

It turns out that Paris is an excellent place to train (as well as just to visit generally). Here is why:

Promenade Plantée (garden path)

This is a 4.5-kilometer elevated pedestrian walkway on what was formerly a railway line. The path starts near Place de la Bastille (close to Gare de Lyon), winds above the streets of the 11th and 12th arrondissements of Paris, occasionally dips to street level, and ends near the Bois de Vincennes (conveniently, right beside the Paul Valery running track and outdoor pool). Access is also available via several gates along the way. Bizarrely, the Promenade Plantée on its raised platform above the city is lined with all sorts of trees and gardens. It has been accurately described as 'a running oasis of traffic-less-ness and nature that bypasses the hustle-and-bustle of the Parisian streets below'. Well worth checking out.

Bois de Vincennes (Vincennes Park)

In the 11th century, the Bois de Vincennes was a royal hunting playground. Today the public park is the largest and greenest area in Paris. Essentially it is a forest park with a web of trails (and some roads) spanning through it, not unlike ‘the Labyrinth’. Once you disappear into the surprisingly thick and rugged forest, you forget that you are still in Paris. I reckon the Park is probably just over 10km in circumference. So you could probably jog around it in about an hour. But you’re much better off getting lost on the trails within the park and trying to find your way out. The Park is on the eastern side of the city, about 4km from Bastille or Republique. The park is home to several lakes and gardens, a château, a zoo, and even a Buddhist monastery. You can hire boats and paddle around the lakes. It’s a very cool place.

The Seine

The Seine is the river that runs through central Paris. Running along the Seine pathway (which runs continuously for several miles) will take you past some of the city’s most famous monuments and under some of its most famous bridges. You will be distracted along the way by numerous impressive and noteworthy sites including Notre Dame, the Grand Palais, the Eiffel Tower. At this time of the year the path is busy with tourists, and there is also a man-made beach on the edge of the path crowded with sunbathers (strangely). The path is fairly wide, so as long as you get your run in early (before 10am) then you should be able to hold a steady pace without too many tourists getting in the way.

Public access athletics stadiums

Parc de Vincennes alone has five running tracks within its boundaries. We paid a visit to the Paul Valéry centre on the city side of Vincennes, after reading that a couple of running clubs train there on a Monday night. The track is part of a sports centre with tennis courts and 5-a-side soccer pitches etc. There is also an outdoor pool across the street. The track was accessible through an open gate from the southern side of the sports complex, and there is also a hole in the fence on the eastern side. I ran four sessions on the track over the course of the week: 16x400 off 60 seconds, 5x1mile off 2 minutes, 10000m tempo (25 laps), and 10x800 off 2 minutes. This was particularly handy since my Garmin was out of action.

Parc de Luxembourg

This is a relatively small park (about a mile around) in the South side of Paris. Yet I’m mentioning it as a jogging option because it’s so beautiful that you’ll be happy to run several laps around it. This is a ‘must see’.

Paris to Versailles

The Paris to Versailles race is a big event on the local running calendar. The 16km race starts near the Eiffel tower and finishes by the Palace of Versailles. I decided to reccie the route in case I ever decide to run this race. It was pretty boring, and quite hilly. On the upside, you can save yourself €3 by avoiding the train fare and the spectacular panorama of the 'Musical Gardens' behind the palace is worth the hike. Not to mention the ice cream. You'll need a map, preferably a GPS map on a smart phone, to negotiate your way there through the suburbs in the south-west of Paris.

The battle of Snowdon

Finishing time: 1:16:40 (Summit 51:40)
Distance / ascent / descent: 10 miles (16.2km) / 1085 metres of ascent and descent
Finishing position: 27/500

The Snowdon international mountain race is one of the big races on the British fell (mountain) running calendar, and this year became a ‘stage’ on the European Sky Race series. The race offers big prize money (£10,000) and attracts plenty of top runners from across Europe.

The course is an exciting and demanding 10 mile ascent and descent of Snowden, the highest mountain in Wales. The route is out and back (5 miles each way) from the village of LLanberis at the base of Snowden, and involves 1085 metres of vertical ascent/descent. I was thankful this year to finally secure myself an elusive entry for the race (only 500 entries available), after getting in early for a change.

Having reccied the route last summer, I was anxious and a little unnerved by the epic nature of the race. The climb was long and painfully steep in parts. For this reason, I altered my training over the last few weeks by running hill repeat work-outs each week in place of a second track session. And I added some additional mileage on the hills to prepare the legs for the climb.

There was a large and intimidating contingent of international team runners crowding the start line in their national vests. This included the Irish team of Tom Hogan, Stephen Cleary, Roger Barret and Robert Malseed, whom had staked their claim for the Irish vest with strong performances at the Irish European mountain team trial last month.

I took off at a cautious pace from the gun, watching unconcerned as the Irish vests moved ahead on the steep tarmac. Climbing has never been my strong point, and on this unforgiving and grueling ascent it is essential to conserve leg strength for the latter part of the climb (if you think it's bad blowing up in a road race, you should try blowing up half way up a mountain). Having said that, the hill repeats seemed to be doing their job because I felt comfortable hopping up the boulders. I tentatively pulled up beside Stephen Cleary about 15 minutes into the climb and went ahead, for the time-being.

I then passed a Northern Ireland Irish runner who seemed already to be struggling, and pulled up next to a local runner, before recognizing him as Iain Ridgeway. Uncannily, Iain is a flying Welshman whom inspired me to take up the sport of mountain running years ago when I met him in Wellington, NZ. I hadn’t seen him since he’d moved back to Wales in 2006. We exchanged a few surprised words upon recognizing each other, then back to the matters at hand.

The field thinned out after 30 minutes of climbing and the legs began hurting. I was reduced to a clambering walk on the last steep boulder climb, but was still moving well and pulled back a couple of struggling runners. Iain passed me about 500 metres before the summit, and Stephen Cleary (in the Irish vest) then came past and I followed the lads over the summit boulder steps.

My quads were burning furiously at the summit. The first few boulder steps of the descent are very steep, and I struggled to keep my legs from buckling under the weight of my body. I took a few seconds to gather my breath and collect myself. All was going according to plan. Regain composure, it's almost time to attack the descent.

First thing is first. In a mountain race where you’re not overly familiar with the route, it normally pays to follow a local guy who knows what he’s doing. I knew that Iain would know the course like the back of his hand because he lives at the foot of the mountain, so I decided that I would do everything I could to stay with him.

The leaders were being diverted off the summit onto the train tracks. Iain dived through a gap between boulders off the edge of the trail below the summit, down onto the train tracks. I followed him and exclaimed to Stephen – this guy knows where he’s going - gesturing towards Iain.

I knew that Iain was a class mountain runner, but the way he tackled the descent took even me by surprise. He took off so fast from the summit that he managed to put 100 metres on us by the time we hit the tracks. Stephen and I launched into overdrive to pull him back over the next five minutes. Tearing down the mountain dodging the multitudes of meandering and unpredictable pedestrians.

We had managed to get within about 25 metres of him, when he followed a goat track onto the grass to take an alternative route alongside the main track. By doing so, we managed to avoid many more tourists whom littered the main trail. Our efforts to close the gap on Iain paid off, because we were now able to follow his line, which (being a local) he had no doubt run and tested hundreds of times before in training.

Over the ensuing ten minutes, Iain, Stephen and I descended like mad men and passed over ten runners whom had beat us to the summit, including two of the Irish team runners – Robert Malseed and Roger Barrett, who were less accustomed to the terrain. Such was the pace (sub 5 minute miles over steep grass and boulders) that with 2 miles to go I began to feel fatigued. Stephen moved ahead of me on a flatter section of the course, and I lost a few seconds on the pair of them. But did my best to stay in touch before the final steep technical descent down onto the road.

By this stage the soles of your feet are burning due to the pummelling they've been getting for more than twenty minutes. Massive blisters had formed and I could swear the soles of my shoes were melting. Just to make things worse, the last half-mile involves an extremely steep paved road which flattens out towards the finish line.

I managed to pull back a few seconds on the steep road but had nothing left to give once the road flattened out. Iain was 30 metres ahead and Stephen was about 10 metres ahead. I was operating on the threshold between running an optimal race (leave nothing in the tank), and collapsing in a heap a couple of hundred metres short of the finish line. The short uphill stint at the road junction into Llanberis (I'm talking 30 metres) nearly finished me off. The best I could do was to keep pace with my two comrades and cross the finish line just in behind them.

Well done to the lads, I enjoyed the epic battle. It was the most intense and physically demanding mountain race I’ve ever run. The climb was a killer (51:40) but the descent was even more gruelling (5 miles down a mountain @ 5:00 mile pace or 3:06 min/km).

Days later, I’m still hobbling around like a geriatric, in significant pain all through my legs from the pounding – D.O.M.S. No chance of running until later in the week. Will have to hit the pool instead.

Back in the game

After taking a few weeks out to concentrate on training and hitting the hills for fun, I decided to race last week as a warm-up to the International Snowdon mountain race on Saturday 23 July.

So I tentatively took to the start line at the Phoenix Park 5 mile on Saturday 16 July. On the one hand I was confident because training had been going well. But I hadn’t posted a good performance in a race in 9 weeks, so was worried that my form in training might not translate into race fitness. The hilly and wind-swept course was not about to deliver fast times, so my best hope for the race was to finish strong and take back my confidence by racing smart.

Things went to plan. After running a steady race throughout with several runners sitting in behind me, I attacked at the magazine fort where the course turned left uphill and into the wind for the last mile of the race. In doing so I shook off the runners who had been sitting behind me, pushed past a couple of runners and made some ground on some usual (friendly) adversaries who were up ahead.

Most runners were disappointed and somewhat alarmed by the ‘slower-than-expected times - checking in with each other to make sure that they weren't the only one to fall short of time expectations. But slow times were inevitably due to the course and race conditions. On the whole, this was a promising first race back for me.

Four days later I took a bold step and signed up for the Dublin Graded 3000m at Irish town track, alongside a few fellow Rathfarnham W.S.A.F club mates.

The 3000m event involves 7 ½ laps of the Olympic distance athletic track. Track racing is often very tactical, and it takes practice to get the hang of the pacing and race-strategy. Unfortunately I missed most of the track season due to illness in the first half of June. So as it stands this was my first, and will be my only, track race of the 2011.

The top lads went off ahead while myself and a couple of club mates settled at a tempered pace of 74/75 second laps (3:06min/km or 4:58 min/miles) and ran more-or-less together for the first 5 laps (2km). The pace seemed to slow a bit after the first two laps and I was feeling ok after three laps so I tried to push past, but my club mate Brian Furey had different ideas, and accelerated as I pulled beside him. I wasn’t used to running 3 minute kilometres and was nervous about blowing up, so I decided not to rise to his challenge at this early stage of the race (after painfully watching too many breakaway cyclists last week getting pulled back by the peloton throughout the TdF last week).

Two laps later, I felt strong and decided to go for it. I pushed to the front of the group with 600m to go and imagined myself running intervals at Bushy Park (Tuesday training ground). The adrenaline kicked in then, and I surged ahead, confident that I had enough gas to shake off any late challenges. I then had a clear run into the finish.

Finished in 9:19 on the stopwatch, so approximately 3:06 min/km pace. I would have needed to run harder in the middle part of the race to run a fast time, but I enjoyed the race and it was a good confidence booster for the Snowdon race, so it served it’s purpose.

My season goal after returning from Kenya was to run under 9 minutes for 3000m. That was based on a plan to race and train for track all through the summer. So this result was quite acceptable considering how things actually turned out.

Observation: track racing, alongside a fast paced mountain descent, is probably the most exhilarating type of running race. There is something about the pace, combined with the shoulder to shoulder battles that play out on the track, that make it such a buzz.

I look forward to having a decent crack at the track next season. Fingers crossed for a clean run into it next time.