Paul May

We’re off to Berlin to celebrate New Years and to finish off the Christmas Holidays. Hopefully, it’ll be as great as it was when I was there for the World Cup - just colder, and with less football on the telly, obviously.

Yikes it’s early. Off to stand in a queue at the airport :) Happy New Year!

I took part in the Aware 10K in the Phoenix Park yesterday. It was a great run; well attended (over 1000 runners) and well organised by Aware and Donore Harriers. The weather was bright and fresh with no wind - a perfect Sunday morning.

The course was tough enough with some lovely hills in the second half (the pass by the Magazine Fort is dodgy enough on a bike - running it is absolutely no fun) and a 500m dogleg turn away from the finish line at the 9K mark - just at the point where turning away from the finish was the last thing I wanted to do. I made it around in 48 minutes 32 seconds - a personal best for 10K and 11 minutes quicker than my Port Tunnel time. Average heart rate was 168 for the run, so a bit higher than the 160 last week. I’m very happy to have run a good time, and to have been able to raise money for Aware. Well done to everybody who took part. Probably no more running until the new year.

Happy Christmas to you all.

Hello! I did the Port Tunnel run on Sunday, which was good fun. I haven’t been running since the Dublin Aquathon back in September (?), so I was really bluffing it. Anyway, I made it home in a leisurely (read: crap) 59 mins….7 minutes slower than my 10K leg in Chicago in August and about 30 minutes behind the decent runners.

10 thousand people huddled together on the approach to the tunnel for 30 minutes listening to the interesting blend of a local radio station van blasting out every song with the word “run” in it (Born to Run, Run To You…etc.) and the Starter shouting at people to get off the grass verge and that they were only kidding themselves. All good fun.

We started running (jogging) into the tunnel; from the grey winter light and the icy wind outside to the warm sodium glow and balmy 18 degree air inside. The contrast was wild; people were ditching jackets, santa suits and tracksuit bottoms all over the place. A leisurely jog later and we were back outside in the real world. The medal is very nice, well done to the organisers.

So, I’m going to try the Aware 10K on Sunday in the Phoenix Park, see if I can beat my pedestrian time. I’ll give it a go anyway.

Hope you’re all well.