Day 3 of Connaught XC in Ballinasloe

Well rested this week so I had hopes of being nice and strong in this race.

Straight away on arrival, met up with a few from the club and settled nice easy few laps of the pitches with Cian down in Padraig Pearses GAA grounds to warm up (7.7 km!). The course was to be 7 laps of a small loop with plenty of turns. The ground was nice and solid and the weather was fantastic so there should be plenty of grip with the spikes and no mud.

Met with fellow GCH'ers before the start for the all important photoshoot:

At about 3:15, a little behind schedule as usual, we were off. I'm detecting a pattern with these XC races start times! Settled into a nice pace for the first lap, loads of turns in the loop really breaks up the stride, constantly slowing down and speeding up is tough going! Pace felt nice and easy for the first couple of laps and stuck in behind some guy from North Sligo AC called Niall. I felt like I could easily go by him in the first few laps but I knew there was still 5 laps to go so held tough and see what was going to happen. On about the 5th lap, it felt like the pace lifted, looking back on the stats I don't think it did. What ever happened I was really struggling keeping up with Niall. On the last lap, the game was up for me, first Niall started pulling away and I had nothing to respond with, then Cian went past. Brian in his usual strong finish style went past as if I was stopped, on the 2nd last bend only a couple of hundred metres form the finish Gerry caught me and I usually have a nice kick but this time there was nothing. I looked back to see if I needed to pick up the pace to secure my current position but I was safe so just eased off the pace and crossed the line after 8km in 29:20 in 8th place. It turns out Niall was also a Novice so I was 2nd Novice home. Great running from Niall Hoey who apparently plays GAA and only runs twice a week. Now there's a blow to the confidence!

A nice 2.2 km warm down with Gerry gives 17.9 km for the day.

Not too sure what happened today, just didn't have it in the legs. Perhaps the build up week of no speed work and all easy running didn't help? Ah well, all in good time, softly softly catchee monkey.

There was mention of the Inter-counties in Santry on the 17th. Hmmm...