Pacers Racing Team visits Ireland

One race down in 2010, lots to go. Yesterday I lined up with many old friends and road warriors in the Kilmacthomas 5 mile Road Race. Kilmac is only 9mi away from home and I went to secondary school in this village. So in a way it was a home race. I had run some parts of the road back in the day, the route was mostly on the old main road and the new Kilmac by-pass, we did pass my school about 1k into the race I had a flashback of the many football games we had on the so called all weather pitch. Fun times !
The race started at 11am 210 lined up all together. (funny this is an early start over here !) It was around 35 at the start, sunny but with a little chill in the air. We couldn't complain about the weather. I knew the race would be fast with the Waterford based Latvian Internationals ruling the roads in recent years. Long ago it used to be the Harty bro's Philip and William and myself taking the wins. County Waterford now belongs to the boys for the Baltic region, Sandis (the faster of the group ) who had recently ran 30:20 solo on the roads for 10km was the only one to show up. Ravis the first one to make the voyage to Ireland, went up to run the National Intermediate Championships in Roscommon.
Back to the race, we got out pretty hard. 4:43 for the opening mile, I had the plan to run behind Sandis for as long as I could and try to stay with him. The second mile was uphill and we hit 9:43 at the 2mile mark, shortly after he dropped me, I was 14:43 @ three mile, the 4th mile was again 5:00, then I closed in 4:59 to run 24:45. Sandis won in 24:22. The course was an average one for the Waterford area, a few hills but really good road surface.

Overall I'm happy with this effort, my main goal going in, was to be around 24:35 and I was thinking it may get me the win. With some more tempo type efforts, I will be right were I need to be this Tri/Du season.

Now I need to get back to the US and put the work in on the bike before the March 27th showdown in Alabama.

Next week I'm excited for our LOVE THE RUN YOU'RE WITH 5K - Home

Thanks to Dan Mcgrath for the great photo. Check out his website below.
http://www.editorialimages.ie/