Raheny 5 mile 2018

Will Martin Smith

I woke up on Sunday feeling a bit sick and with what I thought must be tired legs from ‘Hills & Sprints’ on Tuesday. Delighted to have my excuses all lined up, I tucked into my first breakfast of the morning. 3pm races have their upsides after all!
Many hours and much faffing later, I was late-ish so I missed all the pre-race facilities and fun. After what was, frankly, a poor warm up, I arrived at the start feeling surprisingly good and hoping to bump into a non-running somebody to mind my phone and car key. I was advised to throw them into Lucy’s van at the start line. Thanks Lucy!
I joined a crafty gang of Sportsworld runners who had managed to break apart the sturdily built start cordon and we slipped into the front of the throng ready for the race. Good spirits all round, ready for the gun.

What giving 110% looks like

The race started and we set off at a good clip, downhill towards the sea. The crowd around us thinned out fairly swiftly and I settled into my stride. As I was a bit unsure where I was fitness wise, the plan was to go out quickly, blow up and then struggle over the line. The second and third parts of the plan were executed perfectly.

We had great support all round the course from the Raheny residents and supporters. The three toddlers on their little chairs, sitting like auld fellas at a cattle mart, running the rule over the field on All Saints Road was a personal highlight. On the way back up All Saints Road, I heard Emily and Myles shouting what I took to be encouragement. It may just have been the first part of an unheard threat, but whatever it was, I went bouncing on down the course with ‘Go on Will’ ringing in my ears. Plenty more ‘Go on Sportsworld’ shouts around the course helped to hoover up the miles.

Train of pain

The course was flat enough with little wind to speak of so conditions were ideal for hard running. So hard in fact, that I went out too quickly and lost a good bit of ground over the last mile. The park section and especially the out and back part were difficult as the noise of the finish is easily audible yet still disturbing far off. For all that, I did manage a modest burst of pace coming down the straight and finished under my goal time of 32 minutes.

Elsewhere, the massive Sportsworld crew of nearly 50 runners seemed to have had a successful day out. By my count we had 7 men coming home under 30 minutes, led by Michael in 28.21. In the women’s race, Maria Jones, Catherine Bambrick and Ciara Brady finished in 18th, 20th & 26th places respectively, which must surely have been worth a team medal. Lots of happy faces afterwards seemed to confirm that we had lots of runners pleased with their times.

The power of letters of complaint

The racing done, we all retired to our respective homes to sit in the dark and gorge on the outrageous amount of protein chocolate in the finishers’ swag bags which was presumably hijacked by Raheny AC from a truck coming out of Dublin Port.
Being a recent joiner (hence being collared to do this report at the start) I may not know everyone’s name yet but it was great to see so many Sportsworld singlets out on the roads of Raheny. We’ve got a good road race marker set down now, so work hard and smash those times! Well done everyone who raced and see you at training.