I'm delighted to report a great GCH/Fit4Life turnout in Craughwell today for the 2nd annual Craughwell/Fit4Life 5K road-race. I counted at least 15 of our members (and I'm sure a few more appeared on the starting-line), a significant proportion of the overall lineup.

With excellent organisation, Craughwell AC appointed pacemakers on the clock to assist in guiding everybody around, but particularly those new to racing and on their maiden voyage at the distance. Athenry AC's Peter Delmer was stationed on 22 minutes, GCH's Thomas Porter on 24 minutes, Mayo AC's David Huane on 26 minutes and so on through 28 minutes, 30 minutes and beyond.

Whatever else you learn about running and racing, if you can properly master the art of pacing yourself rigidly to a specific time/pace, then you will be well on the way to achieving whatever personal running targets you set yourself. With that in mind, if you were ON your pacetime today, well done, you stuck to the job description well. If you were slightly OUTSIDE your pacetime, no harm done, this gives you something concrete to aim for next time out. If however you were INSIDE your pacetime, you're faster then you think, but you're also a bit naughty - if you were playing golf, they'd be calling you a bandit! We'll be watching out for you next time.

Anyway, congratulations all round for getting around the course today on what was a lovely mild November day to be out running on the roads and in the countryside. A special thanks to official GCH chaperone Eve Daly, who, while she couldn't run herself on the day, turned out to organise the troops for photos, etc. and offered valuable encouragement out on the circuit. Thanks also to Ian Egan for shouting us on as well and taking many good photos featuring practically all our runners and which have now been uploaded to the following library:

http://www.galwaycityharriers.com/albums/fit4lifecraughwell-5k-november-...

We hope to add Eve's collection to the same album over the coming days so do check back again.

Finally, many kudos to Craughwell AC for staging a very enjoyable and efficiently organised event with a race-director's car supplied for additional safety, stewards at all the major junctions to prevent anyone taking a wrong turn, and the all important water-station at bang on half-way to replace those lost fluids. I know some of ye were enquiring about getting an official time for your race - it's probably worth checking up on the Craughwell AC web-site (see: http://www.craughwellac.com) over the coming days where I'm sure you will find the vital information.

For those who were with us last summer for the Galway 5K series, a chance perhaps to compare with how you ran back then. For others, I'd encourage you to stick with us through the winter and sign-up for the 2009 Galway 5K series in the May/June timeframe. This will give you 6 more cracks at the 5K distance over the early summer months including another trip around the Craughwell circuit - I'm looking forward to it already myself!

Keep running...