Multimarathon

This was an inaugural event. It was a ride on the tram to Connolly and a short trip on the DART to Clontarf. I had run much of this route when I lived in Sandymount and much of it includes the beach on Bull island and is both picturesque and very flat.
Unfortunately, the previous week the race director elected to put the race back an hour and was scheduled to start at 11am rather than 10am. The increasing heat and humidity was an increasing cause for concern and I knew I would not be able to run to potential. By the third mile my spilt had dropped to 06:58 and the effort was too much. My heart rate for this split averaged 177! I consciously dropped the pace to get my heart rate down and the next few mile splits averaged about 07:20 with a heart rate still approaching 170.
The race consisted of two loops that incorporated much of Bull island and included the beach. This was surreal and an extremely heavy fog came down. Quite literally runners followed the runner in front of them to ensure they were heading n the correct direction. Visibility was probably less than twenty feet and seemed like one of those crazy adventure races in the desert.
As the last few miles approached I slowed further as there was no point killing myself. I decided to consider the race a good workout and consoles myself with the recogniton that it was a good hard session and the first time I had felt completely injury free since I completed the Connemarathon.
I came home in 01:38:17. This was by far my slowest half-marathon but was also the one with the highest average heart rate. The heat and injury induced sporadic training during the previous two months meant I was quite happy with my performance and look forward to getting into good race shape again.