If you’re a regular visitor to this site you’ll be aware that this year I set a goal of completing all four ten-mile races in the John Buckley Sports Munster Series. There’s a report on this site on my adventures in Mallow in early January and there’s another on the Dungarvan race in early February. Mick Rice has done a great job on describing this year’s pilgrimage to Ballycotton so I won’t write a blow-by-blow account – instead I’ll give a little monologue on the importance of seizing the day...

Anybody know how this feels? You set yourself up for a great race but nature has its way of putting you in your place. I travelled to Cork in good shape this year – my seventh consecutive Ballycotton 10. Having ran a personal best in Dungarvan I was very focused during February and trained hard. My sessions went well and indications were that I was fit. I tapered my running for four days before the race and planned my assault on the course.

With thirteen Athenry AC runners entered there was a good buzz in the days preceding the race. One of the talking points centred on how many top-one-hundred tee shirts we could carry back to Galway. In Ballycotton the first one hundred finishers collect a special tee shirt along with their infamous mugs – and to many of us those tee’s are a badge of honour. In order to win one you typically need to run sub-60 minutes for ten miles – we targeted three shirts! Yours truly was expected to deliver one of those.

I’ve yet to travel to a race where the conversation on the journey, in the changing room, during the warm-up and standing on the line, doesn’t revolve around the current injuries. Ballycotton 2007 lived up to this expectation. We had already lost a few runners due to injury and other afflictions and of the rest, I alone seemed to have no story to tell. Surrounded by teammates with bad knees, shin pains, all sorts of muscular ailments and exotic maladies, I felt a bit isolated in my apparent health. I listened with empathy as the various afflictions grew in stature and swelled to bursting point as we awaited the gun – and felt a bit disappointed that I didn’t even have a bad night’s sleep to report. Oh well.

Mick described the race very well in his report, so I won’t go over old ground. In any case my run was not a good one and I’m glad that I can side step the details. Suffice it to say that a slight stitch after two or three miles was a pre-cursor of what was to come. As the race wore on, and I laboured into the wind with everybody else, I began to suffer from stomach cramps. This culminated with an unplanned stop after about six-and-a half miles. When I got going again I found it very difficult to focus on racing. My race effectively ended at the side of a road with more than three miles to go.

Looking ahead I could see the group I had been running with and I tried to dig deep into my mental reserves to give chase – problem is I don’t think my mental reserves go very deep. I remember thinking about how Mo Farah fell during the 3000m semi-finals in Birmingham a few days ago. Despite hitting the ground and rolling over he jumped up and immediately set off to give chase. Then he realised he was running in the wrong direction! He turned 180 degrees and set off again, this time closing the gap and eventually qualifying for the final. I tried to draw inspiration from that but the truth is that it’s much easier to run through pain when you’re on-track – once I fell behind my legs felt heavier, the hills seemed higher, and the continuing rumblings in my stomach seemed worse.

I think what did work for me however, is being part of the Athenry team. My personal goals were shot but we were still on a tee-shirt raid in Ballycotton. That, and the realisation that other maroon and white runners might overtake me, drove me up the hill. I had no idea what position I was in but I drove on praying that I wouldn’t finish 101st like Brian O’Connor did last year. I imagine that I was not a pretty picture crossing the line in 89th position to collect my prize. Mick and Brian also clutched their cotton shirts having both ran under the hour despite their war-wounds and I drew consolation from their performances.

I was surprised at the depth of my disappointment in not breaking the hour (1:00:56) and not getting anywhere close to my Dungarvan performance. It is a strange thing and maybe only other mid-pack sportspeople can understand it. When you really put in the training, when you psyche yourself up, when everything seems to be right, we really don’t go out there for glory in other people’s eyes. We go out there to score a personal victory against the clock and against advancing years, and it’s very personal. An unexpected blow like stomach cramps can easily be used as an excuse for why the performance didn’t happen – but here’s the crunch … now you gotta go and do it all again. It’s another month before Kilnaboy and anything can happen. These chances don’t come too often, it’s important to grab them while they’re there. Seize the Day!

Congratulations to everybody who completed Ballycotton this year in tough conditions – especially the Athenry team who cleared the course in less than 70 minutes. See you all in Kilnaboy.