I was beyond unimpressed with my performance in the Belfast Marathon and had planned to do so much better in the Cork one. There was only a month between the two, which in hindsight was probably a little too short to rest, then ramp up and then taper off again.  My motivation probably took a bit a knock too and my training went out the window in favour of a focus on food and drink instead.

Myself and my running buddy Mincer are not quitters (well maybe a little) so we hopped on the train and headed to Cork as scheduled the day before the marathon. Discussing it at length on the train we decided it might be a smart running move to see if we could swap to the half marathon instead.  We didn’t want to risk a stupid injury and we didn’t want to not run either, so this seemed like a sensible compromise.

Switching from the full to the half is not as easy as you would think, bibs are pre printed, numbers allocated etc, but the wonderful staff agreed to let us swap, keep our original bibs (yellow for full and blue for half) and swap our details in the background.

Dark Skies Above

The weather on the morning was absolutely horrendous. Full on torrential rain. The saving grace was it wasn’t cold and despite the rain it was very enjoyable weather to run in.

On Route to Start Line

We gathered at the start line with everyone else and set off. Prior to starting we had agreed we would start together and finish together so there wasn’t really much focus on achieving a good time. It was more about remotivating ourselves and getting back into the swing of things.

Despite the weather the people of Cork came out in large numbers to cheer everyone on, which was quite impressive.  The course was well laid out, no massive hills like Belfast and their was ample water stations. It was a pleasure to run, finished right in the city centre and I would recommend it to anyone.

On the last mile we spotted a fellow runner being taken away in a stretcher and thought how incredibly heartbreaking that must be for any runner who is unable to finish so close to the end.  We crossed the line picked up our medals and headed back to our hotel to change.

Happily Done – Post Run Selfie

The official results unfortunately were not updated to give us our half marathon time, I suspect it was in and around the two hour mark. They did record and leave up my full marathon time, which was picked up from my chip. I suppose it is something I can just aspire to achieve in due course and can be a motivation for the Dublin marathon in October.

The other very fun thing about the Cork marathon was getting to meet my Twitter buddy John. He is the man behind the very inspiring blog  From 19st to 10k and he completed the marathon in a very impressive time under four hours.  We had many a post run drink together that evening.  Overall Cork gets a big thumbs up 👍.   

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