It was one of those days when you question everything.
The training miles are flying by at the moment and running is just pure fun for me. After a change of diet (Thanks to Orla) my stomach problems are history and the form seems to come by nicely. I felt great while warming up on a beautiful sunny day in Larne. My expectations on the race were high. After last week i knew that i had a low 1:18 or even a high 1:17 time in my legs. My Half Marathon PB (01:18:32) was about to fall – i was confident.
On a day that could not have been better for running i catched a nice group just after the 2 Mile Mark. As we were running along the impressive Causeway Coastal Route everything felt so easy and relaxed. The group was a little hoover. We catched guy after guy. As good as possible i was drafting in the middle of the pack. Shortly before the half-way mark the route turned away from the coast. A long “grinder” was on the agenda and the tempo suddenly did not feel easy anymore. I could not hold the group and on top of that i got stitches.
This part of the course was the crucial one for me. The next couple of kilometers were just uphill with some short steep enough climbs. My legs could not respond to that and the stitches got worse. I could not get any leg turnover and tried to relax on the long downhill back to the coast road.
As the stitches went on. I had to stop for a walk to be able to breath again. After that my motivation was gone and i made the best out of it running home with a miserable 1:22:01.
Time to reset the central governor – Rotterdam 21 days…
