So, my 4th race in 3 weeks and I am really loving being back in the thick of it. Grange-Fermoy were one of the few clubs last summer who took it upon themselves to put on a road race amidst all the chaos. They managed to pull together a small invite-only field and it was a cracking race despite a hellishly difficult course. That was the same weekend last July and I came 12th in 20:03. The standard was top notch and had me walking away happy but distinctly aware of where I stood in terms of the top performers. This is what it must have been like in the 80’s. Very few races but high quality fields and a standard you just couldn’t compare to today. It has to be one of the reasons why they were so good. Running a 4 mile in sub 20 minutes would have you barely making the top 10 and you just had to work harder to get anywhere near the top. Plus they had no bouncy shoes.
Gladly, the race was scheduled again for this year with another good field promised. Before opening up to the public, they opened registration a day early to anyone who ran last year in an effort to encourage a good standard. I was more than happy to take on another race and I always enjoy the 4 mile distance. It’s essentially a 5k effort where you give no consideration to the last mile until it’s actually happening.
I front-loaded the milage this week and tried to come down a little closer to race day to get fresh as this was one you would want to be fresh for. Having ran the course from last year, I knew it was going to be challenging but with my last two races on difficult courses, I was feeling in a good place and able to tackle anything hilly. We just heard a few days before the race that the course had changed due to unforeseen circumstances. This made little difference, it was going to be just as hard as last year.
It’s race day and looking out my bedroom window, the sun is piercing my eyeballs with the temperature already close to 20C at 9am. I wasn’t too worried about that, I can run ok in heat, it’s only 4 miles and how can you ever complain about such glorious weather. The drive up to Fermoy was nice and relaxed and I arrived at 9:30am for an 11am kick off. I’m getting good at this. We got a recce of the course done in a bus driven by a friend of the club and that was actually great again having the course knowledge in advance. it was kind of looking uniformly difficult with no major hills but just plenty of small difficult pulls. Once we hit mile 1 we’d turn right, left, and left again, making a small triangle before running mile 1 again in reverse. I guess you could say the course looked like a corner flag. We ran the first mile out and back for the warm up, which definitely warmed us up but it was nice to have that done a good half an hour before the start.
The atmosphere around the start was great and the beaming sunshine had people in great form, if a little apprehensive. There we all were, parked in a farmers field lathering buckets of sun-cream all over our pasty white skin while doing hamstring stretches. An Irish road race in summer if ever there was one. Finally it was time to lumber off to the start line where people took shelter in any sort of shade they could. The start line was packed with quality. Amongst my own club mates was Ryan Creech, a serious talent having been unlucky with injuries but now probably in the form of his life having witnessed the stuff he’s doing in training. To me there was no doubting the winner when he was standing on the line. Fellow Wexfordian Ger Forde had made the trip to Cork and always seems to do well in these shorter events. Niall Shanahan of Limerick is in flying form but I just can’t seem to ever get near him, he’s been a bit too quick. Other familiar Cork faces like Tim O’Donohoe, Alan O’Shea, Sean Doyle and club mate John Shine were also nearby so this was shaping up to be a really good race. As with the last race, I turned off the split notifications on my watch, put on the time of day and promised myself to focus on the racing. Nothing else.
Mile 1 – 4:48
Well to say this went out fast is an understatement. It went out very fast. I must have been back in 8th or 9th, really working to just keep contact but it was already splitting up at the front. It was a bumpy ride up until about halfway through the mile and then relief in the form of a nice fast downhill where I felt I was starting to relax and get into my stride. I was after making up a couple of spots and sitting in 7th coming to the end of the mile. My coach was there shouting out the splits and I was almost going to plug my ears but was too intrigued to hear what it was. Pretty happy to hear the 4:48 and feeling reasonably in control. Could I keep doing 4:48’s though? No, probably not.
Mile 2: 4:58
We’d turned right and I knew there was a difficult hill here about halfway through. I was still sitting in 7th and on the tail of Tim O’D and both of us were closing a little on Sean Doyle. Tim was really moving well and edging his way away from me and making his way up to the group ahead of Niall and Ger. When I got to the hill I was right behind Sean and tried my best to kick up the hill to get ahead. I did get a small gap but coming off the hill and taking another sharp left, he tucked in right behind me. Knowing the ability Sean has, he was not going to be easy to shake. We’re on a straight section of main road now, Ryan was starting to get out of sight up ahead and very rapidly closing in on a Watergrasshill runner who went out very very hard. At the end of the mile I spotted said Watergrasshill runner at the mile marker, sitting in the ditch looking pretty spent. That puts me in 5th now but there are many footsteps aggressively pursuing me. I was starting to feel the effort now. Things were hurting, as they should.
Mile 3: 5:00
Shortly after the 2 mile marker, we took another sharp left, just about avoiding a lethal pothole which was circled with white spray paint to highlight its lethalness. This was a reasonably unremarkable mile and pretty incident free. I don’t remember much other than just focussing on getting to the 3 mile mark and trying to kick for home. I was moving well. I eventually got to the crossroads where we first turned at the first mile and now it was onto the home straight. Straight but lumpy. I was really starting to breath heavy but kept telling myself it’s just 5 minutes more. I was now about 15 seconds behind the trio of Ger, Tim and Niall who were all in close proximity and getting ready for the battle of the minor podium spots. Ryan was out of sight. Of course I wanted to be up there with them but I wasn’t strong enough and realistically I was not making that gap up so my primary focus was to hang onto what I’ve got and I reckoned I’d be walking away quite satisfied. I knew I had the ability to see this one out but a mile is a long way.
Mile 4: 4:59
Not long into the final mile and I arrived to what was once a lovely downhill section on mile one, now a loutish uphill on mile four. I had confidence in my ability to run the hills well, just putting in that short sharp effort and taking some relief if there was any going on the way down. It was actually nice in a way not knowing how long exactly was left or what time I was on for. The good news is that the footsteps behind me were quieter than previously and I was probably pulling a little clear. I didn’t let up though and hit the next few bumps just as hard and the rag-doll arms and legs were most likely making an appearance at this stage. I was aching for that final corner where I knew once I’d hit it, the final 300m or so would take care of itself. I was really in the hurt zone now, getting little recovery from the drags but I knew I’d put in a decent shift today just by position alone. Finally I could see a crowd ahead and that meant home was within touching distance. I turned the left corner and put in one final spurt to the line, crossing 5th in 19:47. I only saw my time just as I crossed and I was happy to see I was well under 20. Around 10 seconds later, I managed to turn around in time to see John Shine, Sean Doyle and Michael Bruton all barrelling over the line, 1 second separating them all. I was glad I kept focussed for that last mile or it could have easily been an 8th place finish. Ryan had run a blistering 19:00 with the trio behind all around 19:30. What a show. Water, water. Give me water.
Summary: 5th place in 19:47
Overall, happy to walk away from this one with a sub 20 time and a decent placing in a strong field. Things are going quite well and I’m doing something right and feeling in good racing form. I just need to keep on the same path without doing anything silly, like taking up smoking. Afterwards, I headed up to the Fermoy reservoir for a really nice dip and then it was off into to the city for strictly controlled pints and pizza in the evening sun. It’s good to stop and celebrate the small achievements but my god almighty I am such a lightweight. Monday was rough.