St Andrews Day

St Andrews Day Challenge  33.8 miles  6:01:19

5th out of 92 finishers.

I was pretty much just off the plane. Jet lagged like hell I went straight to bed and slept right through to the next morning. Up early and a quick breakfast I was at the course early. It was freezing with the thermometer showing -5. It didn't really warm up all day. A base layer, T shirt and coat had me start.

The day before I was still struggling to walk after the Quad Dipsea but the nights sleep seemed to have eased the legs up and when I started I was quite shocked at how "not" painful my legs were.

World record attempt

Paddy winner

It was a 6.7 mile loop with 4 loops for marathon distance and 5 loops for Ultra. I needed to do 5 loops to reach 1000 miles with SVN and receive my hoody. This event was also day 6 of a 10 in 10 so there were lots of sore legs around. Amazingly, in addition, there was a world record attempt with Adam Holland attempting all 10 days in under 3 hrs. He headed off much in the lead and would finish in 2:50 something and his 6th under 3 hrs in a row. Also there was Paddy Quinn off a 3hr 40 the day before and much improvement on recent runs. There was lots going on.

At 8:30 we were off and heading east for 1.7 miles the route followed the promenade (on concrete) into Margate passing right through the town and out onto the pier. Far from good I headed off at 9-10 minute pace. Turning around the back of the shell lady statue we retraced our steps back to the start. Now heading west we followed the promenade (still on concrete) past several headlands with the sea on the right all the way. After 1.7 miles the prom finished and we returned to the start finish area for one lap. Thankfully it was flat as at the very hint of a hill my legs screamed at me. I was relatively slow with laps being around 65-70 minutes.

The field spread out quickly and I found my self on my own early but running comfortably within myself. As the morning progressed the wind got up and as we traveled East to West it was into a freshening breeze. But in general it was good running conditions. It being a St Andrews Day event there were naturally lots of Tartan on show and lots of kilts. Except Traviss who was definitely wearing a skirt.

Being day 6 of a 10 in 10 there were a lot of people just getting on with it with most stopping at marathon distance. Lee went out for 5 laps in the lead and Paddy managed 6 laps to come home winner overall. Glen also went out just in front of me for 5 laps and one other just in front of me also did 5 laps. I was very happy myself to also do 5 laps in pretty much 6 hours exactly for a good day on sore legs and was awarded a super medal and the SVN 1000 mile hoody which was very hard earned over the last couple of years.

Photos David Pearse and Graham O Siodhachain
Stats for today