The race was the Deadman's 5, a 5 mile road race that is part of a four race series in Tipperary / Waterford and kilkenny. The race is great value for money, a €10 online entry fee brings you chip timing, good prizes, showers and food after in a local hotel called the carraig. The race runs flat for the first mile, generally uphill for mile two and three before downhill mile 4, and a flat mile 5.

Instruction from JB was to relax on the hills on mile 2 to 3 and aim for a pace of between 3:30 - 3:35, and a finishing time of 28:00 - 28:25. After a 20 min warm up, a record 190 people lined up for the off. The first mile leads you through the town and the three top runners quickly legged it off in the distance. I ran with two others, but a quick glance at my watch showed 3:20 pace for the first km, I also knew from the running style of the two lads ahead that they weren't going to be able to sustain their paces, so I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw another group of runners just behind me so I eased off and dropped in behind them. Soon enough we came to the first of the climbs and our group of 6 caught and passed one of the two ahead of us, and as we went through mile two our group was down to four. Mile three is an up and down mile; gaining elevation throughout the mile though, I was just about still hanging on to the back of this group, working harder than I probably should have at that stage of the race, but I knew if I let a gap open that would be the end of any chance of gaining a place later. This entire section was run into a killer headwind that was really making me toil to keep the gap to 5 metres or so. As we approached the 3rd mile, i had closed the gap conpletely and was able to take a quick breather. Just after mile 3 the hills crest and it's downhill to flat the whole way home. As soon as we turned the corner and started the downhill run for home, the gap opened again and the group split with about 20 metres between the 5th place runner and me, mile four was a nightmare as I struggled to stop tying up, and rather than bring able to use the downhill to drop my average pace I was only able to average 3:35 k pace. I finished 12 seconds down on 7th place and nearly 20 seconds down on 5th, all of that 20 seconds lost on the last two miles.

So, pretty happy with the outcome, even though my training has been good recently my lifestyle has not. We've had 5 weekends in a row now that have been boozy and messy, my diet has gone to pot, and work has been heavy going. So, from today it's back to good life living, so that means no drink for a month, good diet, and lots of good rest. Hopefully there will be a little more fight in the dog come my next race on the 25th June.