Trail surprise

That wasn’t pleasent surprise. 3/4 of whole course run through forest. Forest duct, loose chipping, stones. Felt like trail run, not road. I think that just runners from Monaghan and surrandings knew the route. Don’t get me wrong. I was enjoying that run but could choose better shoes, consider trail ones.

I will start with confesion. Again wasn’t able to keep my pace as I wanted. I can see that biggest problem is to pace myself when the route is not flat and has any different obsticles. And as mention before forest with demanding surface and few ups and downs on each loop (actually discovered that it was almost 500 meter incline). There was one more thing about that marathon really important. That was the first officially messuered marathon in county Monaghan. So I was the part of history. Everyone is hopeful that this marathon will become an annual event. Most of the runners were treating that race as preparation for Dublin City Marathon and some of them got actually quite good results, some subs 3 hours, some runners PB. That means one – course wasn’t that bad (still most of us were complaining about the shoes choice for the run).

OK. Something about day itself. Was very cold, as on the pictures some runners were dressed in the long sleeves and jogging trousers. I had gloves and the warm sleeves (plus bandana as usual). But when we run in the forest it got warmer, so after first loop we were stripping down. I have got rid of gloves, other removes long layers and we run another laps. Have started run with Cezary and the idea was we will try to keep as close as we can to 5:12 min/km but unfortunatelly cause of surface and poor GPS signal we were running sligthly faster (probably about 2,5 minutes per 10 km). Anyway, after 1.5 loop Cezary gave me signal that he will start running his own pace and told me to keep my own. At this stage I knew that watch is no use to me (actually at the end of the run it was showing just 41.3 km), tree line was really dence and because of that GPS signal very week. So, decided to listen to my body and when can run with someone who can pace me. That’s how I end up running for over two laps with Barry and Rolando. Knew that they are running much faster than I should but I was feeling good so haven’t slowed down. That gave me very suprising time – 3:25. I was happy that in such a unpleasant environment I was able to get good time (I think if I knew the splits I could get PB there) but knew that Don won’t be. But again there was suprise waiting for me – Don was glad and congratulated me.

1st, hopefuly not last, Monaghan marathon done… Couple days after but knees are still sore and next marathon in two days…