Arrived down to Santry in plenty of time and found registration to collect the race numbers. A few of Galways top runners missing so unfortunately for our team, I was in with a chance of being one of the scoring runners (top 6 from Galway County).
As we warmed up by doing a couple of laps of the course, we watched the women's senior race. It was aw inspiring to see Fionnuala Britton do her thing and lead out the race from the start and win by a country mile. She's very unassuming standing still but when she gets moving its a different story, she holds such a powerful stride the whole of the race, amazing to see first hand.
Running about 10 mins late we were off at about 2:35. The pace at the start of these XC races is ridiculous. You'd think your in a 400m race the pace that everyone starts out at. Everyone flat out to try get a good position for the first bend. The start is very wide but coming into the first bend there's legs and elbows everywhere as people jostle to get into a good position on the inside of the bend. Eventually came out the other end of the left hand corner and looked around to see Gerry just up ahead so caught up to him and stuck to his shoulder for a bit to settle into a comfortable pace. Things eventually settle down and everyone found their own comfortable gear. I went passed Gerry on a downhill section and kept what felt like an easy-ish pace. I knew I'd have to keep this up for ~40 mins so I didn't go too hard. After the first lap I spotted a few sore heads in the crowd, Kill, Dec, Darragh and Bar turned up to show some support, this picked me up nicely and great to see them out supporting! It was just a case of keeping the head down and counting down the laps for a while, trying to keep the pace up but comfortable.
Sure enough with about 1.5 laps to go, Brian went passed as if I was stopped, I'm getting used to this now! I had planned to put down the shoe for the last lap but ended up picking up the pace to try keep with Brian for the last lap and a half. I possibly went out a little too soon so with about half a lap to go I was completely spent and it was just a case of gritting the teeth and getting home in one piece. With about 100 m to go a Donegal runner came out of nowhere and sprinted passed, having none of it I turned on the afterburners and running on fumes managed a sprint finish myself but didn't quite have enough and he held his position very well to come in just ahead, a great finish to a great race.
I was only 10 sec off my road PB for 10 km (if the 10 km distance is to be trusted, it never is in XC) so I was very happy with that. I don't think I could have left anymore out there.
Results are here: http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/interco3013.pdf
Gary Thornton was 1st for Galway with an amazing run in 13th place followed by Vinnie McGuinnes who ran a great race to come 90th in 36 mins flat. Brian Bruton finished in his usual powerful finish to come 105th in 36:51 and then there was me in 111th position in 37:06. 5th and 6th scorers were Gerry Carty and Brian O'Connor.
Some serious standard of running, thought I might have been able for a top 100 finish but alas it wasn't to be this time around, maybe next year! Back to the drawing board.
A new average HR record too: Avg HR: 194 with it maxing out at 201. I can't say I didn't give it my all anyway!
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/405795621
Here's most of us at the finish, one for the mantle piece:
A nice roast chicken dinner ready and waiting when I got back to Galway, happy as a pig in XC muck.
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