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Border Half-Marathon Co. Clare 5th December 2021

  • 09-12-2021 10:28pm
    #1
    The man in red and black
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 668 ✭✭✭


    I ran this with a friend on Sunday. Thought I would make a thread in case anyone is looking for info on it next year. Great race, really enjoyed it.

    I arrived 1 hour 15 mins before the start and walked straight up and picked up my race number. A small queue of approx 15 people formed in a few mins(they had more staff than Belfast Marathon don't worry!) but I don't think queue was ever massive. Plenty of parking and well directed by stewards. Weather was actually grand. The frost overnight had gone and it was cold, sunny and dry, probably 6-9 degrees I'd say.


    Race started exactly on time at 11:00am. Only downside was the initial one mile loop was on quite a narrow lane but I was taking it easy to start so wasn't concerned. Would have been easy to get boxed in here and waste alot of energy trying to zig zag in and out of people though. There were pacers for 1:50, 2:00, 2:10, 2:20 and 2:30 as far as I could see.


    The route itself was nice but I found it seemed to be nearly 80%+ uphill. I had one big downhill mile on mile 9 where we seemed to get back most of the elevation gain but then there were some bits of climbs on the next few miles again. Considering it starts and finishes in the same spot, more or less, I just couldn't believe how much of the race was spent climbing. There were 3 or maybe 4 water bottle stations on the route as far as I remember. Could have done with a bin 300-500m after these perhaps?


    Electronic timing which was a nice touch. The course seemed to measure short, my watch said 13.08miles and my friends was off by a couple of hundred metres. Likely just down to alot of windy country roads and we were running near the ditch whilst I think they measure in the middle of the road?


    After the race there was a huge stack of water, bananas, yorkie bars and of course a fantastic medal. Also had great man on the microphone cheering people on and calling out names as they crossed the line. People were leaving in dribs and drabs so I got out without any traffic jam. Only concern was we drove out the same gate people were running in to cross the line. Felt like this wasn't ideal from a safety point of view and also you could interupt someones sprint finish as they come around a bend and meet and oncoming car!


    Overall a really good race. If you are racing it just factor in that alot of it is uphill and you get most of the downhill out of the way in 1 mile around mile 9. I overcooked myself on the downhill mile and paid for it on miles 12 and 13 dropping 1 minute per mile each. 405 people ran it and 393 of them came in under 2 hours and 30 mins so it was quite a fast group of people! I had plenty of people around me at all times which gives you something to push you on. I finished in 1:40:31 for reference. I find at my speed sometimes in 10k races I can be quite isolated with not many people to race against as I'm a few mins behind alot of the top people and there tends to be a gap there in the middle. This race had plenty of people under and over 2 hours that we all had people to push ourselves against.



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