I made my running debut in the Emerald Isle on Saturday, February 13th. It was the Irish University Indoor Championships at the Nenagh Olympic Stadium down in the Republic. Obviously, “olympic” is a bit misleading, but it was a great experience anyway!
First off, it felt so GOOD to go on a team trip. I’m so accustomed to going on trips every weekend with my team at home, and I think I was missing it a little bit. It definitely wasn’t the same as home, though. For one, we drove in cars down and had to pay for everything on our own (worth it, of course!). We drove down (~4 hours) on Friday night and had dinner and stayed in a hotel down there, then got up Saturday to compete.
You can see a picture of the inside of the facility. It’s the only indoor facility on the entire island of Ireland, and it made me feel guilty about calling facilities in the state “bad.” The track surface itself wasn’t so bad, but the banked track was really steep and I’ve never run on one before so I wasn’t really ready for it. Also, the place wasn’t heated. at. all. It was actually colder inside than it was outside, so I had on about 4 layers plus two jackets and gloves; it was common to see people in winter coats with gloves and scarves, and I could actually see my breath!
My race was okay… Only 8 or 9 girls in the race, and I finished 6th so I got ONE POINT for the University of Ulster, yay! I actually felt okay running even though I’ve only been running about 4 days a week and haven’t done any speedwork. I figured out what my lap splits were supposed to be, but it was too hard to focus on racing and try to keep track of my watch at the same time (so, Hanna/Mikey/other SHU runners: thanks for always helping with splits and keeping us on track, it’s so hard to try to do it while you’re running!). Still, I was on pace at my mile split but then fell off a little, even though I passed someone during that time!
Oh, and then I ran the 4×200 at the end…ha! Athletics is really relaxed, and a few athletes drove themselves and left after their events, so by the time the 4×200 came around (it was the last event), there were only 4 girls left at the meet, including myself. There were only 6 teams in the relay, though, so we automatically would score if we ran so I was a team player and agreed to run it. I tried warning the other girls, but I still don’t think they were prepared for how truly bad I am at sprinting.
So… one meet down, cross country championships in a month or so! Apparently we have a chance to get some medals there, so it would be cool to bring some hardware back to the states =)
Oh, and on the way back, it was dark and in the country so you could see all the stars. I found Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper… thought it was super cool that I could see the same stars at home that I can here =) Perfect ending to the trip!
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