I turned up at the Tallaght AC track for the Dublin graded meeting with a mixture of excitement and fear. This would be my first proper track race and although I love track training I’ve managed to do very little of it. On arrival I felt totally out of my depth. I had no clue what was going on, so I was relieved to see the familiar faces of Emily, Dave, Bronwyn and Carmel. Emily and Myles advised me to just go out and treat it as a new learning experience and a chance to improve my speed – wise words as always.

I did a few strides with Bronwyn and Carmel and we laughed as we looked around at all the “young wan’s” in their short shorts and belly tops doing warm up’s resembling gymnastic routines! I was in a pair of gym runners (the lightest my shins would tolerate) and Carmel and Bronwyn were sporting brand new, never before worn spikes. Carmel spent about 10 mins tip toeing around the track afraid of getting stuck in it!! I’d say the other competitors were bricking it looking at us!

Then it was time – luckily for us there were enough grade C runners to have our own race. I was put in lane 6. I wandered around not even understanding where to start from. The nice girl in lane 5 had to show me what to do. Myles then informed me I had to stay in my lane until I reached the tennis balls at about 100 M then I could move in. Who knew? Every day is a school day. There was a lot of support around the track from the lads warming up for their races to come. The gun sounded, and we were off. I flailed around like a fish out of water for the first 100M. I’m not used to running with nobody around me or in front of me so I lost a few seconds trying to figure out how to pace myself. Once we merged I relaxed a bit a sat in 4th place while I tried to compose myself. I then moved into 3rd and managed to hold this position until the end – just!

Next up was the men’s 800M. Declan and Gareth both came second in their respective races. Gareth managed to come from the back in the second lap and pick off the runners one by one. It was great to watch. Finally, the men’s 3000 was up. Sportsworld was well represented here and all ran strong.I have to say I was buzzing after it. It felt so good to try something different and push myself out of my comfort zone. Once I got over myself and realised that there were plenty of runners there of all ages and abilities and that nobody actually cares about my time or where I come in the race I really enjoyed it and I would encourage anybody to give it a go.

Results:

Women’s 800M Grade C

Grainne Lynch 02:57

Bronwyn Murphy While 03:20

Carmel Dolan 03:24

Men’s 800M Grade B

Gareth Murran 02:06

Men’s 800M Grade C

Martin Keenan 02:21

Men’s 800M Grade D

Declan Brady 02:31

Men’s 3000M Grade A

Karol Cronin 09:12

Men’s 3000M Grade C

Michael Cunningham 10:04

Will Greensmyth 10:11

Justin McKeever 10:28

Conor Keating 10:51

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