A Win Of Sorts

The timing was not ideal. Recovery from the Dublin marathon had taken a lot longer than I would have hoped and even though there had been some significant improvement in the last week I would have preferred one additional easy week before my next race. Therefore, when  going into this year's Sixmilebridge race my hope was that someone would run away at the start and the rest of us would not have to worry about victory and could just run at some easy effort that would get us through in one piece. When I saw John at the start I thought that runner might be him, but apparently he had other plans.

There is always someone at such a race that storms off at sub-7 pace. I fully expected that. What I did not expect was for that runner to be me!

Having fun early on

In my defence, it felt easy. I was surprised to be in the lead. But then I looked at my watch and saw 6:40 pace. Oops. Ok, it was downhill but still. I slowed down a good bit but I was still ahead of everyone else. I could hear footsteps behind me but nobody went by. I took it easy on the uphill but was still in the lead. I finished the first of the 30 one-mile-loops in the lead, unexpectedly. At the out-and-back section I could see one runner close behind, John a little bit further back, and Denis as well, though I knew Denis was in the 52-mile race, so not really a factor here.

The pace felt very comfortable, so I just kept it going. It was a touch slower that Dublin had been, which seemed to make sense. I kept hearing those steps right behind me, but the other runner did not attempt to pass. I wasn't going to get sucked into a stupid race at the start of an ultra so just kept going at my own pace, which just happened to keep me at the front of the field, without particularly trying to win the race.

After about 5 laps the other runner eventually appeared at my shoulder and introduced himself as Ted, apologised for chasing me but said that my pace just happened to be his comfortable pace as well. We chatted a bit for a couple of miles, during which the pace slowed a little bit, not that I noticed at the time. He got a couple of steps ahead of me when I picked up a drink and led for 2 laps before I went past again, still doing roughly 7:20 pace, maybe a little bit slower.

The (in)famous 1-mile loop in Sixmilebridge has only 1 hill. That hill is the entire course though. You run up one side and come down another, and the start-finish area has a little out-and-back section to make it exactly 1 mile, which is the only flat section. The hill has the nasty habit of getting a little bit steeper with each lap, as is pretty much customary on such a course.

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An hour after our start, about 8 miles into my race, the full marathon started and from now on it was significantly busier. They started just ahead of me, so my first real task was to make my way past most of the marathon field on that narrow path without incident, which worked well. Eventually I ended up right behind one marathon runner that pretty much went the same pace as I felt comfortable with at that point, so I followed him for 2 or 3 laps, eventually apologising for shadowing him, just as Ted had done to me earlier.

Right around that time it started to dawn on me that the early pace had been a little bit too fast and no longer felt comfortable. In fact, I did not like the way my quads felt during the steeper part of the downhill at all, I was afraid they were going to cramp eventually. I have misjudged the pace in Sixmilebridge on at least one occasion before; I guess I hadn't quite learned the lesson. Halfway came in 1:50, which would have sounded perfectly reasonable before the race but by now I knew I wasn't going to hold that pace for the second half and went into damage-control mode.

I did manage to keep going at a reasonable pace for a while longer but had a bit of a dip around the 20 mile mark, which is exactly what had happened in Dublin 3 weeks ago, though this time I was still a bit further away from the finish. I took in some extra fuel and mostly just put my head down and tried to keep the show on the road. A few marathon runners lapped me around that time, including one lady who was obviously winning. I didn't take too much notice and just kept going.

With Denis, winner of the 52 miler

As I went through the start/finish area at 23 miles, Richie asked me how many miles I had done and if I was in the lead, which was a slightly strange question to ask for an RD, and alarm bells went off in my head if the timing system had failed. It distracted me sufficiently to stumble over the timing mat and take a full nosedive, which caused a few scrapes on my hands as well as my legs, though I didn't even notice the latter until after the race. My right calf started cramping but was fine once I got up again and re-started running. Richie apologised, not that he had done anything wrong - I should have lifted my feet!

It was definitely a lot harder now. My breathing got ragged, especially on the uphill, but that is fairly normal for me and probably sounded worse that it was. I definitely was nowhere near race mode and expected to be caught any moment now for quite some time. It wasn't until I happened to lap John around the 25 mile mark, very much to my surprise, that I started to believe that I might win this thing after all. Not that it made much difference - I still had to cover the last few laps all the same.

I must have gone through the marathon in about 3:20 but was only doing about 8-minute miles at the time. I could have gone a bit faster but did not feel inclined to do so, and I was a bit worried about cramping, probably more than I should have been. After 28 mile I just about had enough and the last 2 laps were a bit of a sufferfest, though by then I could smell the finish and got through it.

Happy - mostly to be done!

They pretty much missed me coming in and only realised I was a finisher when I stopped, which is easy to do on a loop course, of course. I had a bit of a Gary O'Hanlon moment in that I crossed the line thinking I had won the race only to be told that I had come second. Remember the lady from mile 20? Turns out she wasn't the winner of the marathon but the 30 miler instead, and we had a female overall winner. I was still first male, which meant I had won my category, albeit in my slowest ever time in Sixmilebridge, and admittedly not against the most competitive field ever, and whoever was here was still hampered from the Dublin marathon 3 weeks earlier (as was I, of course).

So, big congratulations to Deirdre, well done. I probably wouldn't have been able to keep up even had I realised that she was in the ultra. I definitely misjudged the early pace (again!). I ran the first half in 1:50 and the second in 2:00, which is not a catastrophic slowdown but it's not particularly great either. It actually sounds worse if I say I was 40 seconds per mile slower in the second half.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed my run in Sixmilebridge, as well as the very unexpected (category) win and will definitely be back. However, now I seriously need to recover or I 'll end up back where I was 2 years ago and I definitely do not want to go there.

 All photos by Jane Doyle Fitzpatrick. Thank you!