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Speed or distance?
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Cobh 10
Result: 1.14:34 - Chip Time
This would be my third trip to Cobh for the Cobh 10. The first time was as a marshal, the second time I ran and obviously ran again this time. Each trip has been in gloriously sunny conditions so they've been blessed with the weather every time.
I arrived in Cobh an hour ahead of the race and even then the place seemed full of runners doing warm ups and whatnot. I bagged one of the last parking spots in the school opposite Race HQ. There was still a chill in the air when I nipped up to the start area to use the facilities. I returned to the car, removed the outer layers and put on the race shoes. It was warm enough by the time I got back to the start line that I no longer worried if a vest would be too cold. Some quick hellos to a few people and I settled myself near where the 75min balloons had been placed on the railings lining the start area. I met J there and we were too busy chatting to notice that the race was about to start until we saw those ahead moving off. It also took us a few hundred metres to figure out that the pacers weren't using balloons but instead had pacer T-shirts with their pacer time on the back. I settled in behind them and we were off on a fast start.
There is quite a bit of downhill in the first two miles. I half hear the pacers saying they were banking time on the start in advance of the hills. (At least that's what I think they said and it made sense). I moved out ahead of the pacers into cleaner air and I was moving a little faster here naturally anyway and feeling comfortable. At about 1.5 miles we came to the first sharp downhill and I resisted any urge to rush down it. J overtook me saying "there must be some hills here somewhere?" and I assured him that he wouldn't have long to wait. And we didn't as the first one came at about the 2.5 mile mark. I started up it taking it a bit handy as J shot ahead. About half way up the pacers caught up to me and were going faster. I upped the effort a bit but left the elastic stretch out. They reached the crest first and I caught them as we flattened out and the effort eased.
The road undulates a bit until shortly before mile 4 when we reach our second hill. "Ok, just two minutes of running and that's the hills over" say the pacers. Again I let the elastic stretch and they pull away. Over the top and the pacer exhorts us to band together again using a scooping motion with his arms. These pacers are in a "no runner gets left behind" mood. There are a couple of unexpected hillocks but we're definitely on a downward section now and we hit a long, fast, downhill at approx 5 and a quarter miles and the pacers urge us to let go and reap the free speed. I fly down trying to keep myself as light on my feet as possible. I must have looked particularly ungainly as the camera man at the bottom of the hill turns his lens away as I approach.
At the bottom of this hill, at approximately the 5.5 mile point, the road flattens out briefly before settling into a shallow uphill gradient. Except it still looks flat. Here I started to struggle, badly! The effort seemed that much harder for what seemed like flat road and slowly the runners around me started to stretch away. I'd love to say I dug deep and dragged up some reserves or even remembered something inspirational like the story J told me before the race about the young girl with cerebral palsy running at that morning's junior parkrun. Instead I was beginning to feel quite sorry for myself, resigning myself to not going sub-75 and wondering what the damage would be and how I could at least limit it to some extent. I had made some buffer on the pacers but knew it was inevitable they would catch back up as I was bleeding time. Worse, I didn't think I could latch on when they did.
Fortunately it took longer than expected for them to reach me and they urged me back into the group which I did. Alas this was also when they injected a slight surge in pace and I started drifting out the back again in short order. However I had a stroke of luck as we came to the third sharp downhill of the day that I'd completely forgotten about. Here I could catch the pacers, complete a dodgy overtake on the wrong side of the road with a car coming against me, and sail on down the hill. At the bottom of the hill was a 90 degree left turn back to Cobh followed very shortly by the 8 mile marker. Just two miles from home and slightly ahead of the pacers.
The road here is again slightly uphill but thoughts of the finish line have a magnetic effect. The road curves a bit and I remember reading somewhere on here about running the tangents so I take the shortest possible line and this works as I make ground on those ahead. As we get closer to the town proper there are more marshals and support from the crowd. The pacers are still behind and giving me the odd shout out now in support - "great running, keep it going". I give a thumbs up in acknowledgment. The pacers had promised a fast finish and it turns out the new route had a longish fast downhill. This is certainly preferable to the older parallel route which had a sharp uphill just before the finish line. I let fly on this and swept up a further few runners ahead of me.
Happy to get in on target of sub 75 and to improve on my 2019 time by 1.23. I can honestly say that wouldn't have happened without the pacers (who were phenomenal - advising, encouraging, supporting, cajoling and almost bullying us to keep up the pace around the course) and also a bit of luck.
This race was much tougher on the day than I was expecting and it could easily have gone much worse. There was a large amount of support on the course with bands playing at multiple points and the finish wouldn't look out of place at a much larger event. There was a great vibe about the town and I'll be back again next year for another mug with perhaps a bit more hill training under my belt!
Post edited by DeepBlue on7 -
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Hanson Half-Marathon plan for Cork - Week 16 of 16
May 30th - June 4th
Mon 30th
The plan stipulated 5 miles easy but I took this off to give the quads a chance to recover from the DOMs.
Tue 31st
5mi Easy @ 9.29/mi and avg HR of 142. HR still a little higher than I would like for the effort level.
Followed this up in the evening with a 60mi bike ride which is more than probably inadvisable on race week but it did have the effect of loosening out the quads.
Wed 1st June
Rest day
Thu 2nd June
6mi Easy @ 9.39/mi over hilly terrain. This felt good and HR was dropping a bit to average out at 138bpm. Quads feeling good.
Fri 3rd June
6mi Easy @ 9.20/mi again over hilly terrain with an avg HR of 139. All good.
Sat 5th June
3mi Very Easy @ 10.00/mi with avg HR of 126bpm. The last run in this block for me. Running mojo has been coming back to me over the last week most likely as a result of the decrease in running mileage over the last few weeks.
I've had a look back at my stats over the last 16 weeks in terms of mileage and comparing them with the same period in 2019 when I last ran the Cork HM:
So, about 80% more running and 20% less cycling this time around. The last result in Cork in 2019 was 1.42:10. Current HM PB is 1.38:13 from Charleville in 2019. It's difficult to know how much the derailment of the last few weeks of the plan will affect things. I was on course for 1:37:00 all going well. I'm not sure that's a runner now but I think sub 1.40:00 should be attainable and will start with the 1.40:00 pacers on the day and take things from there.
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