It is night time again

Everyone was waiting for message about Le Cheile midnight marathon for 2016.  End eventually it it has been announced – mid July. But there was a small hiccup. No b2b this year, no chip timing. That what is happening when race director is changing. Still under Le Cheile Athletic Club but changes made. Wasn’t ready for trail. So, that change wasn’t affecting me. But time chipping missing was a big bummer. Back to early days. One person counting laps for four runners…

Friday, as usual. Start minute before midnight, as usual. And as usual marathon run after whole day of work. What usually you are doing on Friday evening night. Relaxing? Watching movies? But when you are addicted to running (even during bad spell) you won’t say no to 95 laps of athletic track. Can’t say it is boring. Maybe cause you are running during night. Can’t see that you are passing same things 95 times and the landscape is not changing at all. What you gonna do? You will run. You will come to AC in the middle of the night and wait for signal to start. Usual suspects on starting line. Even before arriving on site you know that there will be 20-30 runners who are on every marathon. Was missing Cezary there. But having said that it wasn’t boring before the start. On the way to toilet before the race I dropped my phone on the grass. Or that what I thought. My phone actually found a puddle. And that was it. No more Xiaomi phone for me. Damn it. Bad luck and that race hasn’t even started. Hmmm… Would I get time I wanted now? Is 3:40 available in that state of mind?

Just stick to the plan. Same time per loop and should be ok. Piece of cake. Plan, plan… But already pissed off cause of damaged phone. Strange feeling that pit-stop will be needed. Probably all that set my mind to state were plan would not work and I will start running faster than I wanted counting that all be ok. Don’t remember what time I supposed to have per lap but I know I was going much, much quicker. And going like that I haven’t waited long for toilet pause (damn you IBS). It was early in the race, I think it maybe fifth loop or quicker. So, straight away I was way back where I wanted. Time wasted. And what you should do when something like happen. You should keep calm and stick to plan, do not try to make up lost time. But what you suppose to do and what you will do are two separate things. At least that how I ‘work’. Now was time to made up for lost time. Pace was good, felt great, night was beautiful. Time for run. Whole 42.2 km… Last year I when I was running for first 35 laps I was in front, leading. Lost pace after that but still was able to finish 3rd I think, with 3:14. Not bad for middle of the night running. But back then I felt that my pace went down on about 40th lap. Whereas now I knew that lap no 20 was slower than number 15. Number 25 was slower than 20 and so on and on. In the middle of the race I was just thinking why am I jogging not running. Why someone is overtaking me? That shouldn’t be happening. And another thing. When I was finishing lap 80, with just 15 to go, my ‘counter’ called lap number 79. I was in bad shape and that message just made me mad. Started to shout at person who was counting my laps. On every lap I was telling him that he is wrong. I was counting with him and every 5 laps he was shouting my lap number. All was fine till that 80th lap. Where the hell he lost that one lap. I know that is just just over 400 meters but it almost made me to stop. Was pissed off but decided to continue. With two laps to go I have been asked how many I have till finish. Said 2, it has been corrected now. Just over 800 m to go. Was much happier. Perspective of three laps till finish would be devastated. But two not too bad. Finished in 3:39. Not too bad considering melt down and pit stop.

Wasn’t too bad. Could be better always but still phone beyond rescue point.