Where is my Coke….

…and jellies. That was a phrase which was constantly repeating during second half of the Royal Canal Run in Longford. I was able to got my hands on one cup of coke before starting last lap (about 5.2 km per lap, so 8+ loops) but that was already too late to fill energy which deteriorated during run. Apparently I was unlucky cause according to other runners coke was available for last three laps. If that so marshals weren’t able to fill the cups in time for everybody. Other thing we with jellies. These were gone just after first two loops. I think problem was in the amount of runners starting almost at the same time. Marathoners, halves and 10K started just 30 minutes between them, so on the 5.2 km loop there was plenty people fighting for food and water… But that’s only complaint but that one probably cost me my best year result for marathon. Anyways, wasn’t too bad. finished in 3:18:58.
Little bit about marathon itself. Route was exactly same as the one which ‘Marathon men’ have run when they were doing their 32 in 32 days challenge. Quite flat, which just three bumps for bridges. Most of the route was on the hard path and just small bit of tarmac. That was actually really nice for the legs, but still path each wasn’t too wide. Sometimes just one person wide and when you were thinking about overtaking somebody that could be challenging. Am I complaining again? Ok, last one – the weather. Whole weekend prior run was gorgeous, sunny and warm. And on the race day we had heavy rain before the run and temperature drop quite significantly. I was regretting not taking gloves with me. Can you imagine that? End of April and I’m talking about running in gloves. Still, wasn’t as bad as couple last days where I was having my training runs in hale. End of bad part. Cause it was in Longford I have decided that I will drive there in the morning, especially that race was starting at 10 AM. This time was traveling alone. My Wife needed rest after exhausting week in work. Got too Longford, found Longford Slashers GAA and went to registration tent. And there was first surprise. Not just medal and bib number with chip but I was handed as well a technical shirt. Wasn’t expecting that, even that it entry fee was higher than usual for small marathons. Waiting for start in miserable weather. Great that there was so many familiar faces. Could kill time chatting and not paying attention to cold rain. Walking to starting line… Gloves, where are my gloves? Wind stopper checked. Whole way. Start… part on the tarmac, 900 m heading too finishing line (that was that extra needs to be done). Straight on we had couple of fast starters. You could see that they are heading for sub 3 time. I was thinking about 3:30 time and was hoping for 0 pit stop run. But couple of kilometres in and I was feeling great. Decided to pick up little bit on the pace and try to maintain that for the whole duration of the race. Didn’t worked out as I was expecting. Second half of marathon was slower by about 1 minute. Still not too bad. During whole race we could listen to music. And it seems that Brendan (race director) has similar taste in music as me. So, we had INXS, Guns and Roses, Metallica… kind of of Radio Nova party. That was very nice. Whole marathon itself was constant overtaking of other runner (not that I wasn’t overtook by others) on the 5.2 km loop. Even that my second part of the race was slower it was steady enough to allow me to caught up with some runners who were in front of me. There was one guy who, after the race, was complaining that I pass him by just 3 miles before finish line and that I done that for the second time in the raw (apparently did that in Clontarf). My steady run pushed me to 4th place. I was delighted. Time? Not too bad, but there is still room for improvement. After the race I had a small chitchat with Eimer about marathon in Szczecin. I’m trying now to get as many runners from Ireland as possible to run there. If at least 2 or 3 will show up I would consider that as a success. Will see.
Cause I was alone there isn’t any pictures from race day…