Irish Milers Club 5000m

Hello

I had planned on running the Glasgow Milers meet on Friday but when Michael { my brother} asked me to pace him on Saturday night in Dublin, we had to change plans. He was looking for Sub 14 minutes for the Irish Standard for the European U-23 champs.

It's slightly frustrating as Michael has already ran 14.04 { Watford BMC Gran Prix}, and it's inside the European Athletics standard for the event, which is 14.10, and if he was in most other European countries he would be fine, but Ireland have tightened the standard of the 5000m.

Anyway I was only too happy to help, if it meant he had a better chance of getting the time. Mark Christie took the first 3km in 8.22. Perfect pacing from him, allowed myself and Michael to break away from the rest of the field in horrible conditions in Irishtown, Dublin. The track had a water lying on it from the constant rain and a slight wind didn't help matters.

We got through the 4th km needing a final km of 2.45 to dip under 14 minutes. At this point I still thought we could do it. I was keeping a very close eye on the clock for the first 8 laps. From then on I was only keeping an eye on Michael to make sure he didn't loose contact with me, because of this I wasn't paying close attention to the clock and as a result didn't realize we were getting progressively slower each lap. With 800 left we needed two 65 second laps, and I kind of knew it was all over then.

An extremely brave effort by Michael on the night wasn't helped by the conditions and short recovery after Watford, and it's perhaps the last chance he will have at attaining the tightened standard.

From my own perspective the race was OK, I did finish first in 14.11. I felt really really comfortable going through 3km in 8.22. When Mark actually stepped off the track I felt better as I had an open track in front of me and could just run not having to be careful not to run to close to anyone. I felt like I could have pushed on and ran a PB from that point. The last few laps were well outside the pace we should have being operating at and so that might go some way into explaining why I felt so good. After crossing the line I was fine, like I could have kept going at that pace for another few laps anyway.

My foot is slightly bruised from trainers I've being wearing and has resulted in an on-going pain in my calf  so I wore calf guards during the race, and they worked a treat. I'll get in to see the physio during the weke and have him sort it out again.

Thanks for reading

Until next time

Keep running