Rememberance

#214 Remembrance  4:56:57

>6lbs of metal today

Phoenix Running put on this event and its sure to be a hit going forward. It was a remembrance run that will be run the weekend of remembrance Sunday every year. This year in its first running was actually on 11/11.

It was on the marathon course at Walton On Thames so was the standard out and back 10.5k lap.

receiving 100 medal and cert

I arrived early with Brenda as there were due to be lots of awards today as well as a special race brief. A quick registration and we all gathered outside the leisure centre. There was a steady drizzle but it wasnt too cold.

Rik's new challenge series "Global Marathon Challenges" were giving out awards and I received two awards. First one was my second 52 marathons in 52 weeks. Due to a quirk in the rules it is actually a rolling year and my 52 in 365 days (52 weeks and 1 day) was good enough. This was also followed by a 100 in 100 weeks which I managed to do in 699 days. The medals were huge and we also got some lovely certs. There were 2 more 52 presentations and 6 more 100 inductees including Philip McEvoy and Enda Cleary from Ireland. I quickly changed into my new 100 in 100 shirt and we headed to the start.

Brian Mills 1300

At 9:00 we were off and I started steady but not fast and sloshed my way through the first 5K to the turn around. It was wet and muddy and drizzly. At the turn around point (32 mins) Fiona was there encouraging everyone and I settled in for what was a slow but steady run.

Start

Special for the day was Brian Mills running his 1300th marathon. He was struggling bad with injury and this will be his last marathon of 2017.

There was a fairly big crowd today and noone was going super fast. It was a very sociable day with lots of shout outs and high fives along the route. I ran a little with Richard Boese before he speeded up and left me.

One of the unique things about today was the "race freeze" that occurred at 11am (2 hours into the race). On the sound of a hooter the whole race stopped as did cyclists, dog walkers and pedestrians. You could hear the cannon's go off in the distance and after 2 minutes we were off again. This 2 minutes would be taken off at the end.

End

With Philip

Half way was in a pedestrian 2hrs 20 and I stopped for some sweets at the tuck shop and kept plodding along. Enda was going great and would go on to do a sub 4. On the last 5K I reckoned I needed to speed up a bit to make the 5hr mark so ran it all and even caught quite a few enroute. In the end I was easily under at 4:56 and about 10 came in after me all under 5 hrs.

It was cold at the finish and we got the most amazing 2.5lbs weight medal.

It was a good day out and now roll on the 10 in 10 in 10 days time.

Stats for today

Ballinasloe

#213 Ballinasloe 4:31:16

Very busy road

This low key MCI run event was hosted by the Sheridan family just on the outskirts of Ballinasloe on the Galway Roscommon border. The host venue was the Ballinasloe rugby club and we had full use of the facilities including free parking.

I arrived early after an aborted attempt to come down the night before. A 5am start had me in the car park just after 7. Registered via the lovely Catherine Guthrie I waited warm in the car. It was a cold but bright morning. There was also a 10K and a half marathon on the same route later in the morning.

There were 36 finishers in the marathon but with Jimmy and Larry also making an appearance there seemed more. At 8am we were off on the early start.

A fairly pedestrian start had us following Aidan Hogan who still suffering from injury would hobble round today.

Couldn't catch David today

The first 1 km was along a fairly busy main road passing lots of cows and dung (it smelled like Laois). Turning left we climbed a small hill onto a bog road and followed it round for a couple of K. There were a few angry dogs on this patch that thankfully got bored on the next laps and for the most part left us alone.

Climbing slightly unto an exposed out and back section (500m each way) on a bog road we turned around and ran straight back towards the M6 for 1.66 miles before climbing over the motorway. Immediately turning left we followed a windy slightly undulating road back towards Ballinasloe. Before entering the town we took the pedestrian bridge back over the motor way and immediately hit the busy road again crossing over and back in the last mile back to the rugby club.

The wind was light but and it was cold but most got away with Tshirts. I started with gloves and a buff but dis-guarded the gloves after 1 lap. The first lap (10.5K) was in 57 minutes and I got in and out of the club house before the 9am start (mostly half marathoners). The second lap was quite strong as well bringing me through half marathon in 2:03 just slightly behind my Dublin time.

The 3rd lap was slow and I walked a bit and to be honest got a little bored with the long straight roads. A 1:15 lap time brought me trough in 3:18 and David Brady running a strong race (be it from the 9am start) led me out on the last lap.  I kept David in sight all the way and as I approached the finish I was within 20m of him. This brought me through marathon distance in 4:31 over 8 minutes faster than Dublin and I felt a lot stronger.

I didn't hang around as I had to get home but it was overall a very enjoyable day.

Stats for today