Foxy Foxy

A nice little jaunt up to Howth, a picture postcard fishing village at the northern extremity of the DART line. From the harbour it's about five miles clockwise around the peninsula, with the stretch from 0.4 to 1.7 miles a moderately difficult hill up to The Summit Inn. So I eased up that gently and down again, past what remains of Phil Lynott, to turn left at Sutton heading south for the city. Quite a stiffish breeze against though I try to keep the tempo up. It's a pleasant run indeed down along the Clontarf seafront with plenty of locals taking the air on this first day of March.

After a long right sweep it's a left along Alfie Byrne Road and into the badlands of the East Wall and Sherriff Street which skirt the working docks. Here even the police dogs go around in pairs and the Garda helicopter a few hundred feet up is a familiar sight. However the lions are still asleep and a slow, limping antelope can pass through unscathed. Onto the familiar last mile upriver along the north quays and - what's this? I'm high-fived by a young, pony-tailed, foxy fellow runner going in the opposite direction. A cool way to finish this morning's run. My mile splits were

11.50
10.49
8.50
9.07
9.06
9.35
9.28
9.11
9.11
9.32
9.40.
9.18
9.00

13.18 miles @9.35 m/m, total time 2.06. A reasonable rehearsal for Conn in three weeks time - though that race has three miles of serious uphill, against which I'll hopefully be running fresh after a taper. 32 miles on the week and I've been pleased with the quality of most of those miles.