“Maria crosses the line at the recent 10k in Punchestown”
It’s hard to believe it’s less than a week until the half marathon, I set this goal for myself way back in January and now it’s almost time!
At present I’m both excited and nervous about it but I’ve been training for the last 5 months so hopefully that will stand to me come race day.
I was planning on running 15k last weekend but unfortunately my husband was really busy with work and could only watch Charlie for an hour so I settled for 10k. I really wanted to make it a good one so I started off with a fast paced kilometre (now when I say fast paced I mean fast for me, to some it would be a slow kilometre!!!). My time for that was under 5 minutes and I was wrecked by the end of it so I slowed it down for the rest. I was glad I pushed for that first kilometre though because it really helped keep the overall pace down. I finished with a PB of 52.23 and was delighted!
I still really wanted to fit in a 15k last week too though so I hyped myself up all day Tuesday and set off after work.
I didn’t push the pace and was really enjoying the first 10k with an average pace of 5.30 but once I got to about 11k I was feeling the strain, my hips were hurting and I was pretty tired but knowing I only had 4k left kept me going.
I was still about a kilometre away from home when I reached 15k so I kept going and finished at 16k. It felt great to have that distance done before the half marathon as I really think the 21k would have been a big shock to the system had I not done it!
On Saturday my brother Rob and I ran the Elms 10k at Punchestown racecourse. It was a great day for running, nice and bright but with a bit of a breeze and light rain at one point which was lovely and refreshing!
I found it a tough course as there were a few hills, one particularly hard one during the last kilometre was the worst! But it was great to get out for a race the weekend before the half marathon just to get the feeling for it again. I was hoping to get a PB but I scrapped that idea after the first hill!! In the end I managed a time of 53 mins.
So this week il be taking it fairly easy, trying to eat well, drink plenty of water and just do a couple of 5k runs in preparation for Saturday. Fingers crossed!!!
