Report By Will Greensmyth
At the weekend, I ran the JJ Reddy Danesfort 10k as a little confidence booster before the big show in Berlin next Sunday. The goal was twofold –
1) to run at slightly faster than marathon pace and
2) to break in a new pair of tackies.
Danesfort is located about 10 minutes south of Kilkenny City and the race HQ was the GAA club. The race was very well organised and had the added bonus of two of Kilkenny’s hurling superstars, Richie Hogan and Paul Murphy, as the starters. In fairness to the lads, this was their local club race and they were getting stuck in with helping out on the day. The course was a tough one, plenty of hills to get up and over, but thankfully the rain that would later blanket Croke Park for the All Ireland football final, held off for the duration of the run.
The standard at the front was pretty impressive, with both the men’s and women’s course records getting smashed, by Sean Hehir and Fionnuala Britton respectively. Both are due to run Berlin next weekend as well and looked in great nick ahead of the marathon.
I tucked in behind the sub 40 10k pacer for most of the race and enjoyed the run, finishing in around 40.30, which is about 90 seconds faster than what I’ll aim to be splitting each 10k on Sunday. I would recommend this race for the annual calendar, there’s also a half marathon as part of the event which would be a real tester.
That’s it now, all the training is done, it’s taper time big style this week, before Eoin and myself fly out on Friday to represent Sportworld in Berlin. Thankfully, we will have Trevor Sweeney travelling with us in his Chef d’Equipe role to motivate, cajole and encourage us all the way around. Le Cúnamh Dé, we will all get around in one piece.
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