Running update - Rose of Tralee and City to Bay 2014

If nothing else, I feel like I should use this space as a way to record my running endeavours.

I ran a 10k in Ireland. (Ireland! How cool is that!) I had not trained in the lead up, and in the three weeks immediately prior I was travelling around Europe, mostly on a diet of gelato, pasta, and wine. I may not have quite been in my peak physical condition, although I had done quite a bit of walking around (which, spoiler, is not the same as running ten kilometers).

This is me, at the start, being extremely apprehensive about just what I had gotten myself into.

That guy definitely finished before me.

The race started at the wetlands, and went uphill (luckily not terribly steeply) to the top of the town, and then slightly downhill into Tralee (as in Rose of Tralee) to finish.
There were kilometer markers - sometimes. It was a fun game. Surely we must have done one kilometer by now - oh hey I just did two! Surely we must have done two by now, nope you had barely done half of one when you thought that!
I gave myself walk breaks after each song, but kept them short. I played leapfrog with a few people who were jogging steadily. I kind of wish I had stopped to take photos along the way, but I didn't really want to drag it out any longer than I had to. But it was a nice day, and there was nice scenery, and running people are so encouraging.
There was one water break, which was situated in such a way that you turned off the main road, DOWNHILL YAY to the WATER YAY, and then realised that oh shit, now there is a steep hill to get back into the race. Of course I "sprinted" up it, the quicker to get it over with, and I am pretty sure that is why my legs were so sore the next day.
And oh my god, were my legs sore. To get into our hotel for the next few days you had to go up several steps, in the door, and down several steps. It was extremely painful, as was sitting down, standing up, walking, etc.

Anyway, here is me running, courtesy of my excellent running photographer (dad), who managed to be in three different places along the route.

And here is me with my big-ass medal!

And with my scientifically proven recovery aid.

My time was about 1:11 I think, which was about my time from City to Bay last year, which you might recall is a 12k. Then I came home from Europe and ran City to Bay again, fairly slowly but with an impressive lack of letting myself take walk breaks. 1:19 I think. I would like to do sub-60 one year.