First back-2-back

Had to try it – marathons day by day. And there was (still is when writing this post) opportunity for me to do that. East of Ireland Marathons has organized event 10 in 10 – 10 marathons to be run in the 10 consecutive days. Of course I wouldn’t been able to run all marathons. Decided that I can try do two marathons in two days – day by day. The whole event is split between two courses. One in Howth, the other one in Clontarf. Runners are running on the Clontarf route in the odd days, remaining days in Howth. Because I wanted to do two days in a row I had to finish both routes.

Writing part one – after first marathon in Howth.
This route was very challenging, at least for me. 4 laps, 110 meters incline on each lap. Starting with 4 km flat, next 1.5 km incline, 0.5 km decline/flat, 2.1 km uphill and last 2 km downhill. My plan was to keep time in 4 hours and try to keep same pace on the flat parts (uphill and downhill different story). The idea was to do each lap in 1 hour. First lap was slow on the flat part but cause of that I still had energy in me, which was brilliant. Finished that lap under 1 hour anyway. Second and third lap was much better, faster flats, better time per lap as well. But when I was running downhill on the 3rd lap I was not benefiting from that decline. And after just finishing lap no 3 fuel was gone, couldn’t get myself together and start to run faster. That lap was really bad (more than 1 hour). But overall I could be happy. Time was ok, hasn’t started the race too fast, was able to keep energy for longer, got 2nd and 3rd lap fairly consistent. Still plenty of work to do.

Writing part two – after second marathon in Clontarf.
I was right. Erratic splits yesterday. Failed the exercise, so had to change plan for the second marathon. Instead of running it faster I planned to run it in 4 hours in equal splits of 5:41 minutes per km. For easier remembering I have decided to use 5:40 split for that run. This time it worked! It wasn’t easy but I was able to keep my pace and my running coach praised me for that. That just made my day. I was allowed to run another marathon on Saturday ( instead of Dublin Half-marathon) but just with 5:30 splits. I need to write something about the course. 4.20 km on the flat, after that you have 2 km to run on the sands of North Bull Island, rest would be flat up to 10.5 km, back same route and repeat. Cause I was keeping same pace, haven’t started fast I wasn’t even tired at the end. Felt like I could run extra couple of miles, at least 50 km altogether. Anyway, I was able to sprint last 200 meters at the end. I’m very happy after today’s run.

Really pleased with weekend… Couple of pictures as usual. This time some photos are taken by Leo Lundy.