Last Sunday I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon which doubled up as the Athletics Ireland National Championships. This was the second one of my career.

An early start of 8.30 meant a 5am alarm but I had booked a hotel close to the start line so used the distance to get there as my warm up.

A stacked field meant that we had a good group of lads up until about about mile 5. A few surges were put in then and the group was split up but I felt good enough to go with the break of 7 lads.

Over the half way point there was a breakaway of 2 but I kept them in my sights and ran controlled keeping a good pace of under 5 minutes/mile. There were a few drags in this second half but I felt comfortable at this pace.

I was in 3rd position with about 1 mile to go but I felt my legs tightening a little. At 1 km left I was passed but unfortunately I had given it my all up until that point and my last mile was to be the slowest of the 13.1 miles.

65 min 58 seconds, a PB and 4th place in a very experienced field of runners-a solid days work.

My coach was pleased and pointed out that I have weeks of heavy miles in my legs so he wasn’t expecting anything more.

Under 8 weeks to go now to Berlin so head down again. The real fun is about the begin!