I'm taking part in my first ever mini marathon... you should too!

THIS year, I am taking part in The Echo Women’s Mini Marathon for the first time. In actual fact, it’s the first ever 5k road race I will ever do (hopefully with many more to come).

I’ve been training since mid-July. And I use the word training loosely. I go out twice a week for a run, hoping for the best, while trying to continue with my strength training in the gym.

I like to think I am quite a fit person, I go to the gym regularly and am a qualified personal trainer, but long-distance running has never been my forte. I’m just not built for it.

I did athletics when I was young, and was good at the sprint-type races, but anything more than 400m and you could count me out. I once even dropped out of a 600m race because it was just too much for me.

I’ve also attempted and failed to start running a couple of times over the last few years — as I’m sure many people did during the covid pandemic.

 I’ll run a few times and give up. My training has been up and down, and until now I hadn’t really found a sweet spot.

It always seemed like more of a mental block than a physical one though. My legs will carry me, but my head tells me they won’t!

However, with the new compact route for The Echo Women’s Mini Marathon it makes running (or attempting to run) the full distance a little less daunting. It also helps with focus in training to have something to work towards, or a goal to achieve.

As part of my training, I’m aiming for two runs a week at the moment, and might try to get up to three in the next week or two, and taper back down again in the week leading into the race.

The training method that’s been working best for me is to add songs to a playlist and head out and run for six songs, or 10 songs, or whatever my body feels capable of that day. Some days I do better than others, but that’s expected.

I find looking at my phone to check my distance or my time or pace very distracting, and that kicks off a chain reaction in my head of realising how far I have left to go before I can stop, so I’m sticking to the playlist of tunes for the moment, and hoping that will carry me through the race.

I’m sure at some stage it will all just click into place and I’ll get to a point where training just flows and get that runner’s high that people talk about. But for now, I’ll plug away with my couple of short runs a week. I’m aiming to run the mini-marathon in around the 35/36 minute mark, which would be a massive achievement for me.

See you at the start line!

HOW YOU CAN TAKE PART

Cork Athletics have confirmed that the event will take place on Sunday September 17 — but there will be a few changes this year. The race starts an hour earlier, at midday on Kennedy Quay, it will be five rather than six kilometres in length and it will take a different route - due to works taking place at the Marina, but will finish as usual in Kennedy Park.

Registration costs €20 for over-16s and €10 for under-16s. Under-13s must be registered with an adult and be accompanied by them during the race for insurance purposes.

Register at https://www.echolive.ie/minimarathon/