Cork County Novice "B" Cross Country Championships.
I haven't raced since Jan 7th 2024. Long time to be on the sidelines (I know this because I checked my posts here).
I won't bother with the usual preamble about injury and lack of training. The bottom line here was i had given a spiff to a load of the kids I coach and my own young fella about how great cross is and how strong it makes you and they all turned up to race so I had properly painted myself into a corner. Doubly so given that it was only over the road in the showgrounds.
6km, 3 laps of two fields, one was the flat field and the other was the hilly one. It was great XC course. Tough but fair, nothing insane. The hills were one short and sharp and a second grinder. Plenty of good ground to get a gallop up, a short section were the had started the Juvenile races that was like the somme, and a tasty square bale chicane that was intended to be hurdled. I had visions of myself Ed Mosesing the shit out of it but chickened out in the heel of the hunt. Discretion being the better part of valour.
The day itself was magic in the context of the squalling rain that fell all week with more of it in the post. Warm and Sunny, Blue skies, not a breath of wind. Soft underfoot but grand. In short perfect.
I had gone for the unorthodox half a cheese sandwich and a glug of water warm up so. After a 10s pep talk from the starter "3 laps of magic lads" he blew the whistle and I took it out handy. Sitting in a back behind a load of club mates.
Ego is a funny thing. I have never been the best runner in the world but have always considered myself good on the hills. When we hit the hill and I scuttled up past about 6 fellas. I had one of my buddies in sight so reeled him in over the course of the first lap down around the flat field shamefully crabbing my way through the giant haystacks. and put him to bed the second time we hit the hill. Motoring away grand..
The fitness is what the fitness is..No pretending. Anyone fitter than me was not coming back to me but there was a group of 3 or 4 of us kind of trading places and nobody was coming from behind. There was a fella from Bweeng who had picked my pocket on the line in the Novice A in 2023..I don't think I'll ever forget him, he has a big Stephen Hunt head on him, he has about 15m on my from the 2nd lap and he was the target but the gap stayed. We moved up as fellas came back 2 or 3 of then but pure stalemate.
Last lap through the somme a Barr's fella shot past and a Bridevale fella like truck and trailer. The Bridevale fella and myself had been trading spots but Barrs man just lifted it. They put 20s into me in the last lap. Fair dues.
Stephen Hunt took out a Cork track fella but I could only get to about 10m of him so my fairy tale of eating his lunch wasn't to be.
Given I finished one spot behind him in 2023 and was way fitter and 2 spots this year albeit in a different event on a different course I was fuckin delighted
Splits were more or less even too. Quicker first mile, Even miles 2 and 3 and a nice pick up for the last 0.75 miles. for 58th/106
Happy as a pig in shit.
Sore this morning alright
I reckon they need to hang my Garmin Connect HR trace in MOMA
Max 190, Avg 176. LOL
Haven't seen 190bpm since about 2015
