And I have run my second marathon now… This time it was in Ballina, Co. Mayo. Small marathon, just about 40 participants but atmosphere was great. We have met MCI members as well as organizers from Ballina AC. You can actually say that it was a family weekend not just a race.
It has all started couple weeks before when I was booking my place in the run. I have ‘met’ Cezary, one of the organizers, via Facebook. We have started to talk about the run and everything and end up meeting him and his lovely family evening before marathon. Daria and Cezary thank you for lovely evening and plenty of energetic chocolate.
Anyway. Even thou the weather wasn’t best we have blast during run. Very nice race course, besides river Moy banks, in the forest, some on the road and the ‘killer’ hill on the way as well. Race itself was planned as five 7.9 km laps plus 2.5 km extra on the beginning. If you would run the lap maybe once or twice you wouldn’t notice even that 35 m incline but when you need to climb five times that hill you are just thinking ‘why I’m doing that again’. I was struggling since about 24 km. My right ankle was hurting me, couple miles after that leg muscles were giving me a small hint that they are still there (and I should remember about that always cause in other case these will start to hurt). I think that I have hit my first wall (probably). I thought that I will need to just stop running. It was on the 24-26 km, just after my ankle started to hurts. Maybe that was because of the pain but still wasn’t nice. I started to hyperventilating, trying to breath fast and very shallow. That was a disaster. But I haven’t stopped, I have reduce my pace (not that I could do anything with that) and push for the finishing line (which was still about 17 km away). Again I was talking to my ‘hurting buddies’ or if you wish ‘hurting body’. Was trying to convince my ankle that it is ok to hurt but not too much and I won’t stop anyway so it can give it a rest. Besides the pain (which is still on the horizon, 3 days later and 3 days before next marathon) I can say that this marathon was a great experience. Nice views, nice route, nice people… definitely marathon to run next year.
Additional info… My biggest supporter – My Wife, has been joined by my former (now) boss Leo. So there was twice amount of people cheering for me 😉 And forgot to mention. I have new PB, which is now 3:24:13, better by 9 sec than the one set in Cork City Marathon. Cause it was very small venue, just about 40 participants, enjoying the run I have end up being second with my time. I should remember my second place, cause it won’t happen again… That is a fact, I was lucky.
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