Irish Runner Paced Mile, Day 2, ALSAA, Wednesday 24th February 2016

(With thanks to Ana Quigley for this report and congrats to our 4 participants.)

We went at 7 to the track to carpool and we met Louise Taylor, Karen Whelan and myself. We headed to ALSAA, and after 2 U-Turns according to the GPS we arrived. We knew we were going to be late to collect the number so I called them in advance to make sure they would have it for us.
We arrived at 7.45 or so… another tour of ALSAA facilities until we found the meeting room. We arrived at the Q&A session and Feidhlim Kelly did the stretches with us. Some new different ones. Cool! Then we went to the track and we did a lap warm up. We met Owen Fletcher there. We were split in groups depending on times… All pacers were really encouraging and supportive. 10,11 and 12 min/mile runners went off first. Louise back from injury and Karen back from some time off joined the 10 min/mile pacer. Pat Carroll was their pacer. In the meantime we kept going up and down the side of the track to keep warm. Louise arrived in 9.38 and Karen in 9.49. Now it was my turn, I picked the 9 min/mile. Aileen Carrie was my pacer. She was really good, encouraging all the way. She was telling us to stick together until the last lap. When the last lap arrived I felt as well that I could push a little bit more and I arrived at 8.39. We were delighted we finished before the time we went into! We got a few goodies as well which is really nice. Catherina McKiernan was there are well. Then it was Owen’s turn… he finished in a shocking 5.18. We didn’t even see him passing by. ;o) The 4 DAC runners arrived ‘way ahead’ of their pacers!!

We enjoyed the evening, it was really well organised and the pacers/organisers were really nice, friendly and encouraging.  Everything worked very well.

Join us for the next one on Wednesday 23rd March. We highly recommend them.