Armagh Road Race and Giant's Causeway

Sorry for the lack of information on here... things have been crazy and I just haven't had time to post anything. I'll try to sum up the last couple days as best I can.

Thursday - Day 2

11:00 AM - 3 Miles, 23 min
8:45 PM - Armagh International Road Race
24 min warm up
5K - 14:42 - 25th Place
2:50, 5:44 (2:54), 8:42 (2:58), 11:39 (2:57), 14:42 (3:03)
21 min cool down
12 Miles total

We started the day with breakfast around 9:30 and then made our way down to the mall (the race course) for our TV interviews. After waiting around in the cold for a while, the camera guys came over to set up. It turns out they just wanted to interview Christian, so the rest of us just stood around in the background while he talked. After that we did an easy shakeout around the course and went back up to the hotel to stretch, shower, and meet up to go to lunch. We've been taken care of really well by the way... every meal is like a banquet and it's all taken care of so I haven't really had to spend any money since I've been here. So we had a big lunch reception with the Mayor of Armagh and went back to the hotel to relax and I took a nice long nap. We then met up with Charlie Breagy (the guy who's made all this happen for us). He gave us our USA uniforms, which we thought would be the 2004 one's but turned out to be the 2000 one's instead. Still pretty cool though so I wasn't complaining. We had a light meal with Charlie at 4:30 and had a real nice time talking about all sorts of things. I found out a lot of behind the scenes things about professional distance running (both how it is today and how it was 20 years ago) which were really interesting. Mostly, it was cool just to network with someone like Charlie and open up a few opportunities for the future.

Finally, there was the race. The weather was getting progressively worse throughout the day and the projected times were getting slower and slower as time went by. There were wind gusts of 30-40 mph and rain on and off. The temperature wasn't too bad for a guy from New England but I still decided to wear gloves for the race. There were a record number of runners in the open race this year and they packed us in like sardines at the start of this narrow 1k loop course. This made it a little messy over the first 400m. I got out well, almost too well as I was running approximately my mile race pace. After about 400m, the pace relaxed and I was able to select position a litle better. At this point, the field was already starting to separate as about 30 guys huddled into a pack and were creating "the race". If I was just here to try to run even and safe, I would have settled into the chase pack, but I was here to compete and take a risk so I latched onto the tail end of this pack. The leaders were 2:48 at the k and I had good contact with Ryan and Tarpy (2:49-2:50) as the pack was still pretty bunched together. At 2k, the pack had strung out a bit more and I was about 5-6 seconds off the leaders. Various guys up front started making some moves with Mark Carroll and our Finnish friend Jussi right in the mix. Jon and Pat both through in hard moves as well and made their presence known early in this race. I started fading a bit in the 3rd loop and was about 14-15 seconds off the leaders at 3k. I started feeling the pace get away from me at this point as these guys just ran away from me but I wasn't going to let myself give up in the middle like I did at Valentine, so I fought for every position and hung on as best I could. I was still in the top 20 at 4k and had caught back up to Ryan, but lost about 5 spots in that last loop and slowed down quite a bit, getting passed by 3 guys in the last 400m. I finished with a 14:42 in tough conditions and was 2 seconds faster than my track race just over a week ago. While I know 14:42 isn't super fast and my fellow US teammates all blew me away in this race, I was happy with the result and more happy with the way I ran the race. I was aggressive and actually made hard moves throughout the race, showing that I deserved to be here, while also making sure to leave nothing left at the end.

While I was back in the pack "surviving", my teammates were dominating this race to win us the team title over Poland, putting 4 guys in the top 8 in a race that had 4 guys under the old course record. Christian did exactly what he said he would do and won his 3rd title here. The race was followed by an awards ceremony and another banquet type dinner which stretched into the evening as all the teams mingled over drinks. After a long day and a hard race, the Guinness was going down smooth! We left the dinner around 1am and went back to the hotel bar where we finished out the evening around 3:30am. Long day but a lot of fun!

Results Again:
1. Christian Hesch 13:57
2. Mark Carroll (Ire) 13:59
3. Jussi (Fin) 14:01
4. Poland guy
5. Pat Tarpy 14:08
7. Thomas Morgan 14:12
8. Jon Pierce 14:15
16. Ryan Warrenburg 14:33
25. Jeff Caron 14:42

Kristen was 8th in her race with at time of 10:05 (3K)

Friday - Day 3

5:00 PM - 10 Miles, 68 min
Back roads and trails through the hills and farm land of Armagh. Great run w/ Tarpy, Jon, and Thomas. Legs were feeling pretty good.

We had a lot scheduled today but I figured things would be pretty laid back and we'd have time to relax between activities. This wasn't the case. We started the morning with breakfast at 8:30am (getting about 4 1/2 hours of sleep) followed by a bus trip to the Giant's Causeway. This was a 2 hour trip up to the northern coast to see some great sights and beautiful countryside. It was actually really cool around that area and I got some neat pictures as we walked along the coastline.



It was also the windiest conditions I have ever been in and at times, I seriously thought I was going to get blown over. We stayed up there for a while and finally got back to Armagh at 4:30pm. We now had to get in a run and shower to be ready for our next activity at 6:30. We made it down to the concert hall (a little late) and saw some great musical and dance performances by some very talented local children. This was followed by a very fancy dinner and a VERY LONG reception. It was nice at first with all the interaction between the teams, but by the time we got through the presentations, more musical performances and the skits from each country (ours wasn't very good), it was past 12:30am. It was definitely drawn out too long and could have been over much earlier. We were all exhausted and had already had a few drinks with dinner so decided to turn in early and call it a night. Tomorrow should be a little more relaxed with less activities and I should finally be able to explore the town a bit.

Lastly, I just want to wish all the best to my teammates and friends competing in tomorrows USA Indoor National Championships. We have Joanie in the 800m and both Jess and Erin in the 3000m. They have all had stellar seasons thus far and I know they will make us very proud this weekend. Rupprecht will also be running a 1200 leg of the DMR which I'm sure he'll do well in. If you are interested in watching these races, they will be on ESPN2 at 5pm on Sunday.

Long post today so I apologize. I'll try to keep them shorter in the next couple days.