Marian Geraghty 10K

Well, as predicted it's a Personal Best, on a tough course. I finished in 62 min and 30 sec, I think. I didn't stop the stop watch on time, so I'll have to wait for official conformation. However if that time is correct, then that works out at 10 min a mile, which is a good bit faster than I'd being going in training. Ray finished about 6 minutes ahead of me, I didn't see him after the first bend. He seemed happy enough with his run, but he did find it difficult. My thinking is that if it wasn't difficult then you didn't push yourself hard enough.

I had butterflies when I got up this morning, I couldn't believe it. It was the type of butterflies I used to get before going out to play a cup match in rugby. The type where you know you've prepared well, and expect a good performance mixed with the fear that something will go wrong and you won't deliver.  There was a big turnout at the race, and it was quite a warm day. I was determined not to go off too fast, and I'm delighted that I managed my pace quite well. John was running with me, he's a one man motivation team. He carried water with him the whole way around( not for himself, but for others, mainly me!) and in the second half of the race when we started passing people who were finding the going tough, he offered some water and advice such as "look at just in front of your feet going up the hills, then it doesn't seem as far to go." and plenty of encouragement to everyone we met. I felt strong the whole way around, and never really wanted to stop. I didn't want to up my pace until the last km though, as I knew there was a long hill climb just before the finish and I had to make sure I'd be able to run up it, however after we crested the hill with about 700m left to the finish I opened my legs a bit and enjoyed running down the hill to the finish.

So three weeks in, and I'm delighted with my progress. I'm still finding it hard to believe how quickly I've gone from not being able to run 2 km to running 10k on a hilly course. I now have no doubts that I'll finish the half marathon. That is of course providing I stick with the training plan. It'll be difficult this week because of work, and then next week I'll be on holidays, so that will require extra motivation to stick to the plan. There's only 7 weeks until the half marathon though, so I can't afford to let two weeks slide, or else I'll be back where I started.

Thanks again everyone for your support, I'm getting a lot of people telling me they're enjoying the Blog, and following Ray and myself as we try to get fit. I Hope you continue to enjoy it, and perhaps if you know of someone thinking of starting running for the first time, you can point them this direction, after all if I can do it, anybody can. Until Tue night, Slan.