See track - think train

3 miles in the rain and wind and hail stones:( I ran along the canal with dad. It was the worst run EVER! The wind pushed me everywhere and the hail stones were like real stones falling from the sky. The rain was pinning down and my tracksuit was soaked. To be honest with you, there was probably no point me wearing clothes. I mean, all the rain went through my clothes and besides, there was nobody out anyway, well, apart from one random lady.

A couple of minutes into the run dad slipped and damaged his leg. He nearly fell in the canal:)

This Saturday I'm running in a 5k race in the National Park in Killarney. I can't wait:)

slán

I went to athletics tonight and  we did lots of drills and shuttles. In a few weeks time we will start athletics on the track in Castleisland on Sundays. So I'll be doing athletics twice a week and running with dad once. I'm excited about the 5k race on Saturday. Dad told me I'll be able to do a race report:)

slán

Today was my first proper race. My number was 345 and I came first in the Under 15 girls - not bad as I'm only 10:)

In the morning I was very excited, especially when we arrived at the race. There were runners everywhere. They all looked fast.

At the start, Dad and I lined up near the back of the pack. The first 400m was uphill, so we started off slow. When we got to the top of the hill, we started to pass lots of people. We went through the first mile in 7:57 and I felt ok. During the race nobody overtook me. By the halfway point I knew I was winning my age group and beating most of the older boys too. The race was an out and back course and I could see everybody who was in front of me.

We went through the second mile in 7:55 and I was still passing people and I felt ok but dad told me to hold back. Lots of the grown ups were surprised when I overtook them.

We hit the third mile in 7:33 and I out sprinted dad down the hill to the finish. He said that it was because of his gammy Ieg:)

At the finish lots of people came over to me and told me that I had run well. A teacher from my school, Mrs Daly, finished 5th in the ladies section. She ran 19:xx. I think dad was very surprised at how fast I ran. He said that he expected me to run about 27 minutes.

The next race in the series is in 2 weeks. Hopefully I will improve my time. The results will be up on the "Running In Munster" blog later today or tomorrow.

Slán