Post 55 - A cross-country race and a cool shirt

The night before the race, I laced up my cross-country spikes, and “spiked” them, if that’s the right word. By that I mean I got the longest set of spikes I could find and screwed them into the soles. You need as much traction as possible when running in ankle-deep mud. The race was the McConnell Shield cross-country event, to be held in Ballyclare. This event has been running for 80 years, and is also part of the winter league. My home club was fielding a team and I was pulling on the club’s red vest as part of the 12-strong team.

I also cut my toenails the night before the race. The toenail on my second toe on my right foot hasn’t been quite right since Ironman Wales. When I tried to cut it, the entire nail literally peeled right off, leaving a red-looking nail bed. Urgh. I like my toenails attached, not peeled off... Not what I wanted, especially going into a race involving running through muck, dirt, filth, puddles. So an emergency quick fix involved getting the zinc oxide tape out, taping the nail back on, and hoping for the best…

Race day, Saturday, was a windy, rainy and dark day. I had a quick jog just after breakfast to make sure the toenail wasn’t going to cause me any problems. It felt OK. I dropped my mum in Belfast to meet my aunt, and then headed for Ballyclare. I didn’t have much expectation for this race as I’m in the off-season and haven’t really been training much, and certainly not training specifically for a cross-country race. I’d done a few hill sprint sessions in the last few weeks, but I was just hoping for a reasonable run-out at the race. To blast the cobwebs away, so to speak. I will try to do a few more cross-country races over the winter – they are great for building strength.

The hour before the race was a bad hour. I met another runner in the car park, and asked where the start was. He said he thought it was somewhere behind the leisure centre. Strangely, although the car park was full of cars, there was no-one else around. So we jogged together towards where he thought the start was. After about a mile, we realised we were going in the wrong way. So back we went, and it turned out we had gone in completely the wrong direction. Time was getting a bit tight, the men’s race was due to start at 2pm. We then ran to the park and the start area. We got there with about 20 minutes left – not a great deal of time to get changed, do a warm-up job, do some stretching and get ready for the race.

I saw a few clubmates. I asked who had the numbers. Normally at these events, team captain or coach or someone will have picked up the numbers and pins, and will give them out to everyone on the team. This was different. No-one had the numbers. I was told we had to self-register in the leisure centre. I looked at my watch. 13:46. It was 14 minutes before the start of the race. Aaaaaargh! I sprinted back to the leisure centre, ran up the stairs, and took the race organisers/administrators by surprise. They weren’t expecting such a last-minute entrant. I pleaded for a number, sprinted back, and had about 3 minutes to get changed and get ready. Not great preparation!

The start - picture by Gareth Heron for www.nirunning.co.uk

 

I'm in the above picture, so I managed to make it to the start line, just about... By now it had stopped raining. It was a 5-mile race, completing 5 laps of the park. It was tough. I ran my best, but I wasn’t as far up the field as I normally would be. The laps passed slowly. It was a heavily cambered course, with one section at the back end in the woods that was particularly slippery and hilly. The last two laps were tough, and it was difficult picking my way past runners I was lapping. I didn’t have much of a sprint finish and was lacking in sharpness. I think I was 18^th in the end. I was surprised to learn there were over 160 in the race, I didn’t expect so many. I knew I wasn’t in great shape, but I had got what I wanted from the day – a good tough run-out that will help me improve my winter fitness.

 

After the race, I went back to Belfast and met my mum and my aunt at the shopping centre. They had found me an awesome shirt. From a distance, it just looked like a normal shirt, but up close was a different story – thousands of little tiny bikes all over the shirt. Mum bought it for me. Nice one!

From a distance, just a shirt...

 

Up close, it's a cool shirt - The only thing that could possibly make this cool

shirt even cooler would be to replace one-third of the bikes with a swimmer,

and to replace another one-third of the bikes with a runner...

Then it was off to a restaurant for dinner (a dirty but delicious burger in case you’re wondering – it’s still the off-season!), and then to visit another couple of aunts/cousins. By the time we got home it was after midnight. A good day…