Clonmel Half Marathon

So I had a pretty easy going week before running the Clonmel Half on Sunday, still I managed more miles then last week even before Sunday so that's a good sign that I'm feeling good and the miles are increasing.

Miles this week consisted of:

- Monday: 8miles @ 7:56min/mile pace
- Tuesday: 4miles @ 7:59min/mile pace
- Wednesday: 8miles @ 8:42min/mile pace
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: Rest
- Sunday: Clonmel Half Marathon

The plan had been to run a new PB of sub 1:30 (all going well) in Clonmel however my body had other plans and as such I ended up sick from Wednesday onwards...eventually things got better but this was yet another factor that I was aware of for setting my new PB and it made me even less hopeful.

Sunday arrived and I figured I'd aim for it anyway with a secondary goal of beating my PB by 1second or more.    Off we went and I knew instantly the race was going to be a challenge as we ran against the wind and up the hill away from Clonmel.

After the initial climb out of Clonmel I settled into a nice pace for a downhill section but after a short while I found myself struggling abit after the first mile and from around 4miles on I found my legs felt awful heavy and lacked any real energy.   Although it was still early on in the race I figured at this early stage I might as well resign myself to a finish time of between 1:34-1:45 and I'd instead treat the rest of the race as a long run for the weekend.

In many respects it was nice to just take it easy for a chance during a half marathon as its the first time I've done it and I've never paced a half marathon race either. However I was still lacking energy and I alittle struggled again at mile 8 and I just decided to walk abit on mile 11 and mile 12 as I just didn't want to take any more chances.  I did however pick up the pace for the last 200metres at the finish.

Official Finish Time was: 1:42:37

Its way off my PB of 1:34:43 but I supposed considering I had given up on any PB or a decent time by mile 4 and I walked towards the end it wasn't bad overall.   Overall I think I can put the poor result down to a mixture of not having the best training of late, the though course in Clonmel and being sick just before the race....perhaps in hindsight I shouldn't have ran it I guess. :)

As always there was a good feed after the finish with plenty of cakes and sandwiches etc, also one thing I found different is they were handing out milk at the finish line which was a nice change from the much more common Red Bull muck.

The milk was Avonmore's new gimmick protein milk so it basically tastes like low fat milk which isn't great when compared to full fat milk but its still a better alternative to red bull, I think I'll stick to drinking normal milk and the occasional chocolate milk. :)

Weekly Total:  34 miles

Miles This Year: 1272 miles