Saturday’s rain had cleared and the sun was shining for the annual Rathfarnham 5K road race on Sunday. A decent punch of Sportsworld athletes lined up at the start line opposite Tesco.
For those who have been running the Addidas race series and gotten used to checking their watch every mile the 5K comes as a shock to the system. In the 5K, tactics moves and pushes you make during your race can make or break you.
Physically, the 5K is tough because you’re racing at just about your VO2 max, with the shorter distance over the more common 10K the margin for error is significantly less. You can’t go on an all out sprint or be too conservative during the first kilometre of a 5K. Paul Duffy doesn’t understand conservative starts. Paul was right up there with the leading pack as soon as guest starter George Lee set the race off on time at 10AM.
The course brings you down by Bushy, across the bridge and up the hill towards Terenure. Then there is a slight uphill followed by a seemingly endless long straight up toward Tempelogue cross roads. We run this course all the time but when you hit Tesco with a kilometre to go your hurting and then someone makes the push for home. You have a split second to decide to go and put the foot down or risk being left in the dust. The last kilometre of the 5K is where most runners either succeed or fail in meeting their target. Looking back to see where someone else is, is not an option. When you kick for home with 200 or 400 metres to go it’s a case of gritting the teeth and holding in there.
It’s not that often that you get to run fast in a race off the track but the 5K is a great distance for that, it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Our ever impressive Ladies team took the team title whilst our first man home today was Paul Duffy in 28th place, in a time of 16:03. Aoife Brady was our first lady home in 53rd with a time of 17:13. The race was won by a considerable 20 seconds in 14:22 by Mark Christie and Lynda Byrne in 16:10 for the ladies.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the race and with 5 seconds separating 3 of the Rathfarnham novice men’s runners and 2 from Sportsworld, next Sundays Dublin Novice cross country promises to be an exciting race.
The first sportsworld men and women home were:
Mens
28 737 Paul Duffy Sportsworld AC MS 00:16:03
30 1723 Gareth Murran Sportsworld AC MS 00:16:05
62 691 Colin McCarthy Sportsworld AC MS 00:17:37
Ladies
53 1887 Aoife Brady Sportsworld AC FS 00:17:13
68 1888 Crona Brady FS 00:17:42
94 1247 Helen White Sportsworld AC F40 00:18:32
Report by
Garrett Murran
