Yesterday I ran the Le Chéile Athletic Club annual 5K road race in Leixlip. Leixlip is in Kildare just 20 minutes from Dublin. I arrived early and must have been one of the first to collect my number because the place was deserted. Thankfully I got sorted with my number very quickly and went back to the car to wait. The race was staring at 11 am but coem 9.45 am there was some of the heaviest rain showers I’ve seen for quite some time. Thankfully it stopped at 10:35 just as I was getting out of teh car o start my warm up.

I knew during my warm up that if tested I would struggle to keep to a 16 minute pace. Because of all the recent inuries my breathing is poor and my knee is holding back my sprints.

The race started from the bus stop outside the amenities centre. Whilst initially there was come confusion over the starting point it was quickly resolved. There was a police escort the whole way around which made everything run fantastically.

The pace was fast but manageable at the start. A bunch of about 10 club runners including myself took up the charge. There was some jostling at the .6K mark where there was a short but decent climb over the canal and railway tracks, reasonably steep climb but a nice gradual decline through the 1km mark.
I lost the leading back on the other side of the climb. My hip was already hurting and I had but a bit too much into the climb and not made up the ground.

There was then a nice completely flat (or slight downhill) section until about the 3.5k mark. This was down one of the roads leading to a bunch of housing estates. When I went through 2K in 6:34 I knew it wasn’t going too well. I never got into 5th gear and always felt like I was struggling from the 3rd kilometer onwards. I passed a few runners out along this section but also got passed out twice myself.

At 3.5K there is a sharp turn and a gradual climb starts at the traffic lights at the new Garda station up until the 4k mark (at Louisa Bridge railway station)/ This section although not tough sorted out those who were not keeping with pace (including me ). I dropped off a few places along this section before entering into the final descent toward the Leixlip Amenities Centre. I found this section a bit odd. You feel like your finished but then still have 400m on the grass track before the finish. Interesting and fun but odd. Grass is a totally different feeling than concrete road running.

Overall a fantastic race with great facilities and really well organisged. I especially liked the efforts that one of the club members went to on boards.ie to take onbaord feedback and get people interested in taking part. It really shows the usefulness of Forums, Facebook etc.

There was also a few other Sportsworld runners but I’m not sure of the names. Think I was a minute of the pace in the end but hopefully I’ll be back trainig and running faster soon.