Several club members and friends travelled west for the Connemara half marathon, marathon and ultra on 11th April
There were plenty of buses to bring them all to the various race starting points…no cars allowed. Marie Chapman had an early start for the 39.3 mile (one and a half marathon) ultra at 9am in Maam Cross on an amazing sunny morning. The marathon started 13.1 miles further on in the Inagh Valley with the Twelve Bens to the west ,reflected in the perfectly still Lough Inagh, and the Maam Turk mountains to the east.
We parked the camper in a layby 2miles up from the start to cheer them all on the way, camera at the ready (or so we thought!). The sun was already high in the sky and it was getting decidedly warm as the marathon got underway. By this stage the leaders in the ultra had already passsed us at a cruising 6 minute mile pace! Soon the marathoners were running by and the familiar club vests came into view I reached for the camera. The batteries, which seemed perfectly healthy a few minutes previously, were decidedly dead. A mad scramble ensued to find new ones by which stage both Bernie and Kay had well gone by. Ger Dempsey had been the lucky one as a glance at the gallery will show. After the marathoners had passed we stayed on to cheer the rest of the ultra runners on their way before heading back to the finish at Maam Cross.
The half marathon course starts at sea level in Leenane on Killary Harbour and climbs steeply out of the village and into the picturesque Maam Valley. Indeed the half marathon runners get quite a raw deal as the finish is at an altitude some 130 ft higher than the start. Runners on all courses have to tackle about a two mile climb out of Maam village before the final descent to Maam Cross. Joe Millar was running at target pace up to this point but lost over 11 minutes on this last stage.
As we stood at the finish line it was obvious that the heat of the day was taking its toll as the ambulances made frequent forays out on to the course to rescue distressed runners. Slaney Olympic however did themselves proud with Kay 1st lady O/70 in the marathon and Joe (guess which one) 1st O/70 in the Half. Bernie did exceptionally well on her first marathon outing on a difficult course coming home on the right side of four hours. Well done too to Ger in the Marathon and the other Joe in the Half. Great to see Wexford represented in the Ultra with Marie putting in a stalward performance in her first ultramarathon.
After the race 70 buses took the runners back to their various hostelries as we headed west to Clifden and seemingly missed out on a good evening in Oughterard with the gang. Unable to pull ourselves away, the next day was spent on the mountains before heading back to Wexford.
