I was very nervous coming into this, not even too sure if I could finish it or not. I had heard plenty of marathon horror stories where people "hit the wall" towards the end bringing them to a shuddering halt along the course, unable to finish. That was worst case scenario. I had never even run a half marathon before training for this, actually my longest race before I signed up for this was the Galway Bay 10km on 1st of Oct 2011 finishing in 41:40 as far as I can remember? (can't find the results online). But when I had this race completed I went in search of more, leading on the sensible next step of the Connemarathon!
I always was intrigued as to how people even run this far without stopping so this was going to be goal No.1, run without stopping for the full marathon distance, after that I hadn't any time goals so just wanted to run comfortably and try enjoy the day out.
Training went well. It was great to have the marathon as motivation for keeping up training through the cold, wet dark, winter months. I followed
Hal Higdon's Novice 1 training plan. It was good to have a structured training plan to follow that seemed to work for many more people. On paper it seemed like a lot of work, running 4 days a week compared to my usual 2-3 days/week. But I wanted to be ready for the marathon when it came around so I started 18 weeks out from the Connemarathon to follow the plan exactly. That was always going to be easier said than done. You find out pretty quickly that it can be tricky working out these training plans around personal plans so a few of the long runs were moved around, always tried to avoid doing a long run on a day after a night our for obvious reasons. I kept pretty much to plan throughout the 18 weeks. I think the most important aspect of the plan for me was the long runs. I always tried to get the long runs in but might have missed more than one of the mid-week sessions. I didn't beat myself up for missing a session or two either and had the mentality that a rest day can sometimes be just as important as a running day, depending on how your feeling.
Race day fast approached and all of a sudden I found myself at the start line of the 2012 Connemarathon, what was I thinking! I lined up at the start with Deccy and Kill. The gun sounded and off we go! Kill shot off like a bat out of hell which was expected. Myself and Dec took off together and settled into a nice comfortable pace. First half of the race went well and went through the 13.1 mi marker in 1:36:10 which felt surprisingly comfortable but I knew this was where the fun started, the "hell of the west" was still to come so I kept the pace nice and relaxed to have something left in the tank for the end. At about mile 20 I was very surprised to see Kill up ahead, turns out he was having a bad day at the office and was struggling big time with the heat and this led to stomach problems for him. The dreaded "hell of the west" didn't actually seem to bad and I managed to cross the finish line after 3hrs 13mins and 9secs, I couldn't believe it, I had just run a marathon!
Here's my hard earned finishers medal:
A great day out, weather was very that day with nearly everyone getting some form of sunburn to the right side of their faces, hence this photo:
Also great support from Anna, Andrew, Valerie (heavily pregnant) and Linda, thanks!
