Seanféistín is dotted with these little stone huts with their red corrugated roofs. As children we believed they were inhabited by ogres and wildmen and in truth I'm still not exactly sure what they were for. I heard it said that they were lookout posts to catch salmon poachers in days gone by, but it is more likely that they were just dumping sheds for those who worked the bogs. At any rate, I decided to start my ten mile run this evening at this very spot.
Although Seanféistín is my regular running route I usually start at the cross at Ros an Mhíl and head towards this little hut, but today for my ten miler, I decided to head in the other direction. Conditions were not that bad - a bit of rain and slight wind, but nothing major. This new direction put all the easy bits first... a long down hill start and a two mile flat before hitting the first of the hills. However, what goes down, must come up! According to my furman programme I was to run this ten miler slower than my projected race pace. Not having a watch or garmin, I wasn't entirely sure what pace I was running at but it felt like 9.40. I felt good all the way through - knew I was running well within myself. The very last bit of the run was a long slow climb - about 600 metres uphill.
My running presence scared some horses who were grazing at the side of the road and they legged it up to the pull-in where my car was, and there they decided that I was no threat so they started to munch again!
First week of the real marathon training complete. Happy with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment