The last time I ran a road marathon was 2016. It’s been nearly 10 years since I did one of those. I tried to run the Cork marathon last year, but the timing was terrible. It was right after the end of semester exams for my BSc course and I couldn’t go out to run for a solid 3 weeks before the race. There’s usually a mad rush of assignments, exam prep, actual exam, and recovering from the mental stress.
This year, I set my sights on Longford Marathon as the big event. The last few years, it’s been Ecotrail Wicklow that’s been my big event of the year. This year, the training block was starting just as my exams were finishing, so it was better than my planning for last year. I missed a few training runs here and there but overall, this was the best training block I’ve had heading into a marathon in a long time.
I drove into Longford the previous afternoon. I had a room booked starting Saturday until Tuesday morning. I didn’t want to drive back immediately after the race. I figured, I’d need an extra day to be rested and ready. This was a good decision in the end. The Longford Arms Hotel was one of the event sponsors and the start/finish line was right outside the hotel. This was an excellent decision. The hotel even had breakfast starting at 6 am the day of the race for the runners to have their breakfast well in advance of the race. I found this extremely kind and welcoming of the folks driving into Longford for the race.
The morning of the race, I was all set. I was going to take the Precision gels in a little gel flask. I had enough in the flask for about 2.5h in and I took a few extra large packs of it just in case. One of my bottles had water with electrolytes and one was plain water. I had sun glasses on and a hat. The previous day was a very wet drive but the day of the race was dry. Due to past experiences, I prefer to carry a hydration bag with my gels and some water during races. I have had races where they either run of water or I run out of water when I really want water. This turned out to be an excellent idea for the kind of weather it ended up being.
My goal for the event was 5h, it felt like a not too difficult a goal but I knew how much I struggled at Ecotrail last year after the 30K mark. I was cautiously optimistic going into the race. I was nervous all through the morning. I woke up early and went to get breakfast. The place was packed. I managed to eat some toast and drink some tea. The official start time for the race was 9 am. I was down there at 8:30 am and the energy was intense! The half marathon and the marathoners went out together. All my previous marathons, I always went out a little too fast. This is manageable with a half marathon but I really needed to control it for a full marathon. I kept my pace just around 7 min/km. The course took us out into Longford town and around back to the start line. Then it turned off.
Once we turned off from the town, people started to thin out as the initial surge of energy wore off and people started slowing down. Very quickly, the marathoners and the half marathoners were split off across 2 sides of the road. The half marathoners turned off at the roundabout ahead while the marathoners pushed on ahead. I stuck to a group of people from around the 5th km and they were around me for most of the race.
At some point, I started chatting with a fellow runner who was going a tad bit faster than me. We were talking and it was easy enough to keep pace with her. Turns out, she was running the Ultra marathon! And she was faster than me trying to run a marathon. I had to slow down after a km or so since I was worried I’d end up crashing and burning.
The best part about this race is the views. I takes you through some gorgeous Irish countryside with sheep and cows grazing along the pastures. At the 11K mark, I saw a few folks who were clearly there to cheer on their friends. They had some great posters. The funniest one was one that said “Speed Van Ahead”. They kept moving along to keep up with their friend, so I saw them at least 3 times along the route and at the finish line. Every time I saw them, I had to smile. They put a spring to my step on the last few km when I saw them.
Unusually, I started feeling tired around the 20 km. Even at the slow pace. This was super unusual since I’m usually able to keep at it for about 25 km during training without too much trouble (except for that one time, which we shall not speak about). The aid stations were well stocked with water, though, as someone carrying their own water, I was at a disadvantage. I had to stop, take my bottles off, and refill it. It didn’t help that one of my flasks started having a bad seal during the race, so it would fill up with air as I drank water and slosh around. That got annoying really quickly.
I had to take walk breaks from then on. I tried to 30 sec run/walks for the rest of the race until there was a hill. The race had a bunch of small hills but stretched out over a long distance. That was rather annoying because those bits of the route also had no shade. I was grateful I had a hat. I was strong enough to keep my position but I didn’t feel strong enough to overtake.
It was really tempting to walk at the 32K mark, but I kept remembering Sarah telling me that the goal is to keep moving. At this point, I knew I was not going to hit the pace I planned. I was a little disappointed, but I was trying to look at the positives. I felt tired, but I was not in extreme pain. Usually, at this point, my core hurts to move. None of that this time. It was just a matter of gathering enough energy to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. There were folks overtaking me, all of them were ultra marathoners. And they all cheered me on as I was moving. And I cheered them right back.
Even the cars on the road would honk, lower their windows, and clap as they passed. At some of the sections of the national road, where it was dangerous for runners to be on the side, they closed off an entire lane so that we had enough buffer to run and overtake each other safely.
The last 3 km of the race were the most brutal. There was a huge climb up over a railway bridge and then back down to the ground under either a national road or a motorway. I was too tired to look up which one. I was walking along with yet another ultramarathoner and we were both having a little whine about the long uphill back up to the main road. I knew I had it in me to do a nice fast km or maybe 1.5 km. I figure once the hill was over, I’d start running and see how it felt.
This is when I noticed that I most definitely had blisters on my toes. It felt at the time like the blister had burst. I thought about checking but I realized, there was no point. There was nothing I could do and I’d have to wait until after the race to get it checked. That’s where I’d find paramedics nearby. I started a gentle trot at the end of the hill, testing the feeling in my legs. Every step hurt my toes a little bit, but once I got moving, it felt easy to keep going.
The last km ended up being the fastest of the entire race. I was surprised I had so much strength left in me. I picked up the medal and walked straight into my room. I didn’t feel like food or water. In fact, I felt like throwing up. But first, I had to confront one of the only downsides to the hotel — I had to walk up a flight of stairs to my room.
Despite not meting my goal pace, I still ran my fastest marathon so far at 5h39m. This was fun. I was texting my coach once I felt better about what I wanted to do for 2026. I’m setting myself up for some loftier goals — A half marathon faster than 2h and a full marathon faster than 4h30m.
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