Longford Marathon

Sunday, 25th August 2002

On Saturday 24th August 3 of us left Stratford-upon-Avon to brave the Welsh bank holiday traffic and catch the Holyhead to Dublin ferry so that we could run the first Longford Marathon.

Longford [in County Longford] is a small town that has decided to arrange the only marathon in Ireland outside the big city [Dublin and Belfast] marathons. The advantages Longford had were that the course was rural and flat and that the local residents were extremely supportive. I also prefer small marathons with less than 1,000 runners because generally they are more atmospheric. Of course, many of the British marathon regulars turned up to make sure that this new marathon did not fail through lack of British support.

I started off at around 7.5 minute per mile pace and at around 4 miles right through to 16 miles found myself in the middle of a group of around 15 very talkative Irish runners. At 16 miles I dropped off the back of the group, but by 22 miles I'd managed to catch up and pass many of the group. Eventually I crossed the finish line in 3 hours 29 minutes 55 seconds [something of a return back to reasonable form]. A great medal and T-shirt and decent showering and free massage facilities were all very welcome at the finish. With 2 crossings of the river Shannon and beautiful scenery all around this is a new Irish marathon that deserves to survive. We got back to Stratford at 4.30am on the Monday morning. Big Dave Carter set off at 5am to do a Bank Holiday Monday marathon in Cambridgeshire. Having marginally more sense I made sure that I got some sleep. After all, Cardiff marathon is next weekend and I don't want to over race!
Jack Brooks

Results

Aug.25

Longford Marathon (Ireland)

+++ 223 Finishers +++

Jack Brooks

3:29:55