Winter Connemarathon

Winter Connemarathon   6:06:40

Given that I have done a 3:42 on this course in the past it shows the depth of the slump I am in when I was only eyeing up 6hrs today.

But it was a big day for me as this would be my 100th ROI marathon and together with my 116 in England meant that I would join a very exclusive band of runners by running 100 marathons in multiple countries.

In fact the calibre of the incumbents reaching this milestone is that they have done on average 1000 (one thousand) marathons each.

Today's event was on the classic Connemarathon course. A course that was the scene of my first ROI half marathon back in 2004 and this would be my 15th time over the course. It was being run by MCI with Ray O'Connor as the RD. Back in his rightful lace if you ask me. timing was by team Gutherie.

A bus picked us up from the Galway Bay hotel in Salthill and brought us to Connemara. We picked up some more of the gang at Peacocks and we were deposited at the start line. It was chilly but for Connemara real nice.

After a very emotional race brief by Ray and Vincent we were off. There was a full bus load running today.

Video of the start and speeches

The weather was as good as I have seen in Connemara and the first 6 miles were the nice flat bit along lough Inagh. I wasn't really feeling it and quickly hooked up with Isabella from GCH and a Scottish lady (I've totally forgotten her name) from Mayo. We walked and ran our way chatting up hill and down dale making good progress to Linnane. It was very enjoyable if slow.

At Linnane, Collette and Eimear caught us up but stopped off for coffee and we were back to our little gang again. The weather was still great. At mile 19 Colette and Eimear came past again and I fell off the back. I was really struggling. David Brady soon caught me and headed off into the distance.

It seemed a long day as I covered the familiar route through Maam and hit the hell of the west. I was walking at this stage but knew I was going to finish in and around 6hrs. In fact at the top of the hill looking back I could see Humphrey catching me and this gave me a spurt and I ran most of the last 2 miles to finish.

I was glad to get there and got my medal and a chat with Ray, Catherine and Vincent before heading to Peacocks for a sandwich and soup (Humphrey was a brilliant negotiator to get us a chicken sandwich).  The bus left us back to the hotel in Salthill.
A quick return home for a bath and it was back to Salthill for the MCI Christmas dinner. A lovely
evening was had.

100 marathon in Multiple countries

Irony was that one of my best ultra runs was on this course in terrible conditions and was pretty much in the same time as my marathon run today and that was 39.3 miles.The  New year will be different

There were very few photos from today.

Stats for today