Possibly my worst race ever :-(

This week was to be a mini taper week with the Athlone 1/2 marathon at the end of it. I was looking forward to the race and felt I was confident enough to run a PB based on recent improvements in training and the introduction of long tempo runs. Little did I know what lay ahead. Monday 9th September - Easy Run

6.02 miles @ 9:22 pace

Just an easy run around Balbriggan. Always seem to struggle on these Monday runs a bit but another one clocked off.

Tuesday 10th September - Session

The usual club session with just under 2 miles warm up before getting down to business. The session was 4 sets of 1x800 @ 3K pace, 90 sec recovery, 1 x 400 @ mile pace, 3 mile jog recovery.

There was a lot of whinging about this one but everyone worked really well it seemed. Splits for me were (3:23, 1:34; 3:23, 1:37; 3:23, 1:34; 3:23, 1:27).

The 800's were very consistent and the 400's mainly except for the last one where I picked up the pace a bit. cool down brought the session to 6.29 miles

Thursday 12th September - Tempo

This weeks tempo was just 3 miles with the race on Saturday. Did a mile warm up towards the ring road in Balbriggan and the set about the 3 mile tempo. Was a windy evening so not ideal for a tempo run buy no problems for just 3 miles.

Completed the 3 miles in (7:45, 7:48, 7:40). some portions were easier depending on the wind. Jogged back home then for just over 5 miles for the day.

Saturday 14th September - Athlone 1/2 Marathon

The plan for this was to try and run just under 1:37 which would be less than a minute improvement on the rock & roll 1/2 marathon on a flatter course. I felt it should be possible with the way training had been going. The club were having a night out the night before and I popped along for a while for a few pints of water and was home in bed by 11. I had talked tactics with Rosemary and she gave me the re-assurances I needed I wasn't biting off more than I could chew.

Woke on Saturday morning with a sore throat but didn't put much pass on it. I also had the same the previous morning but it was a bit worse this morning. Generally I still felt ok though so I set off for Athlone. Met a few familiar faces at registration and got ready with a warm up of around a mile. The organisation was really good and the race started bang on time.

Miles 1-5 (7:23, 7:25, 7:26, 7:24, 7:35)

Started off well and settled into a nice rhythm. The roads were narrow enough but the crowd spread out pretty quickly. In the second mile I ticked in with a group from Mullingar and let them drag me along for a while. I think they might have slowed a bit as I remember pushing on from them a bit but maintaining the same pace. Mile 5 was a bit slower and it was here I started feeling some distress signals from what I remember with my legs feeling like they had run 22 miles already and not 4.

Miles 6 - 13 (7:41, 8:06, 9:16, 8:45, 9:06, 9:07, 10:00, 10:09)

The above doesn't need a lot of explaining. After 6 miles or so I felt like I had been hit by a bus. I tried slowing the pace just to get me to the finish but even running a very easy pace was a huge effort. I even tried taking the gel I had to get some energy but this didn't work. Looking at the garmin I reckon I had to stop around 15 times between then and the finish to walk for portions.

Mile 13 was the last and slowest of the race but around a minute of it was spent trying to get sick into a hedge. I did manage to run the last 800m or so and had someone alongside me trying to will me to push for a sub 1:50 finish. I told him that was 13 minutes outside my target but that didn't put him off. I finished in 1:50:14

Never was I so happy to finish a race but I just wanted to be out of there. Met Danny from the club who ran a great race. Had a quick cold shower and headed for home. The race itself was €20 to enter which included technical top, medal, water in bottles, fruit & water and a non-alcoholic beer at the finish. Exceptional value in this day and age.

I did a lot of thinking on the way home as to how the race had went and what went wrong. The only logical thing I could come up with was that I had picked up some sort of sickness or virus that I didn't know about the full extent of. When I got home I had to lie down and was absolutely wrecked. Even the next day I was not right. You would not get this feeling from going out too fast in a race if you know what I mean.

I was meant to do a long run on Sunday but I was in no condition to even attempt that.

Summary: So a disappointing week which culminated in a disappointing training week overall. I will try to get back to it this evening (Tuesday) and see how I feel. I guess I just have to try and forget about it and get back on the horse. Can't really afford any more weeks like that though if I want to be able to get around Dublin on Marathon day. I still haven't entered Dublin but I do plan to do it. If I get 2 weeks decent training in the next 2 weeks I enter then just before the deadline.