Unpleasant reminder…

Dingle Marathon was an unpleasant reminder of how far back I’m with my fitness. And as well as me not sticking to the plan. Not pushing to much on the first half and be comfortable on the second part of the run… And what I did? Run as hard as I could first 11 miles and paid for that later. Ok, but back to beginning…

What I can say about weekend and marathon experience? It was something out of ordinary. Beautiful Dingle peninsula, great weather, nice crowd, super atmosphere. What you can want more… Ohh, there is one thing. Dingle could be closer. 4.5 – 5 hours drive is quite a lot, especially on Friday evening after work… and when you driving to place which you think you know where it is. And it’s not there. Couple phone calls and 15 additional miles we were where we suppose to stay for next two days. And it was just before 11 PM. Marathon 9 AM next day and group photo 7.45 AM. Usually, if someone would ask me to be so early for photo I would say that I will spend more time preparing myself for run than posing to a camera. But this time it was different. Me and 500 others were running for Manuela Riedo Foundation. Good cause… worth support. Not just during run. Please consider support for them. Anyways, wanted to be in the picture. Early start of a day again. Preparing my self. Plasters, vaseline, sudocream, gear… and where the hell is my bib? It is ‘relaxing’ on the kitchen table at home, 5 hours drive from Dingle. What now? I would like to run under my name, would like to have that marathon to be counted. Other runners, who couldn’t run offered me their numbers, but that would mean not ‘having that marathon run’. Shane and Rey just saved my day… Got new number – 500. And it was against name Alan Gorski. Bib sorted but I was already stressed out. I was ready for picture. That eventually took place closer to 8:30 AM. Damn it and I could stay longer in bed. Ok… where is the photographer? He is at the other side of the pier.  How? Isn’t that too farrrrrrrrrrr? Is not, at least for the drone carrying the camera. After that I actually gave other runners and photographers opportunity to laugh and take pictures with my whole stretching routine…

Left number, late photo, stretching… and after all that (already full packed morning) run itself. Nice buzz. All that 2000 runners – marathoners and those who would run slightly shorter distance, where enjoying themselves. Despite bad form (and all what has happened in the morning) I was feeling ok. Knew profile of the course. Wasn’t expecting any nasty surprises. Knew that it won’t be an easy one. Three big hills, with the last one huge just less than 10 km from the finishing line. What I didn’t know was fact that I will run like a newbie. And that was that ‘unpleasant reminder’. Do not try to run as fast as you can on the beginning. It’s not case of maybe you will pay for stupidity, question is just when you will start to make your ‘repayments’. In my case that was second big hill on the 18 km. That were the pace went down and has never been able to recover. Start for me was like a sprint. Some of early stages of race I was running in pace of 4:25 min/km. Marathon is not a sprint!!! I got used to fact of being passed by other runners who are running shorter distance but it is strange feeling for me to hear marathon runners closing the gap behind me and eventually overtaking me without any big push. So, that was story of that marathon. Fast start, tiredness, lack of pace, watching others back, slow, slow, slow, eventually bounce back on the last big hill running little bit faster than rest of the climbing lot. Three miles from the finish we were on the top of that hill. In front 2 miles of aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh run down. All of us able to get second wind and get the pace up. Hard to pass anyone in that situation. Was lucky, overtook 4-5 runners. And last mile – flat. Lost place or two.  Not to bad. Got to the finish line relived, not very happy with myself but glad that was over. 3:30 in the end. First half with two hills (that one which killed me) – 1:40. So, do the math… second half was worse by 10 minutes… Marathon over, but wait still felt like a newbie. My legs hurt. How? Why? What just has happened? Additional water taken and limped back to the car. Dry clothes, chat to fellow runners. What are the odds that in Dingle on marathon you would find runner from your town, which is 4.5 hours drive from centre of Dingle peninsula… Ouch, took me longer than usual to change my clothes….

Back to b&b, with small diversion via beach, small discussion with Mayo GAA fan (Dublin won reply couple hours after that). We have decided to rest little bit before going back to village for evening stroll. That time of the day (maybe night already) you couldn’t see the marathon runners crowd on the street. Now all visitors were sitting inside. Pubs, restaurants. All packed. But we have decided that we actually wanted quiet evening. So, we drove back to b&b and hit the bed early. We had still half of the Sunday in front of us before heading back towards east of Ireland. We were really lucky to have such a nice weather during whole trip. Last walk on the narrow streets of Dingle town, ice creams and on the way out petrol station… and 5 hours trip back.

Forgot to mentioned that eventually I got my medal for running 50 marathons… Still plenty in front of me.

Summary: great marathon, unmissable event, super weekend, just not best running… and photos were erased from the card. So, need to use pictures taken by friends and posted on the Facebook…