Boston to Belfast in 14 Days

[Ken B]

Preamble:
Back in 2011, Bonnie and I decided to visit Northern Ireland to look up and connect to distant cousins of hers. Some of both hers and my ancestors were originally from Scotland but had spent two or three generations in Northern Ireland as a result of the "Plantation" program. Her cousins were in the Fermanagh County area. I decided to run the Belfast Marathon as part of our trip. However, I tore my right hamstring a couple of weeks before the race. I tried to run with the aid of painkillers but that wasn't possible. Fortunately, that year they had a marathon walk for charity as part of the event. I walked the marathon in a tad under 7 hours.
Fast forward to 2014. We had decided to make a return trip to Northern Ireland to revisit some of the distant cousins and to connect with a couple more. Obviously, I wanted to re-enter the Belfast Deep River Rock Marathon and run it this time.
Prerace:
We had an uneventful but tiring trip from Buffalo, New York through Newark, New Jersey to Belfast over Thursday night. I was able to get about 90 minutes of sleep. We spent the remained of Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday resting and visiting with Bonnie's cousin Alan and his wife Christine. On Sunday evening we had a nice roast beef dinner instead of my usual pasta meal.
Race Day:
I woke up at 6 AM after a good night's sleep and ate a good breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns and button mushrooms. This was a departure from my usual Carnation Breakfast Anytime liquid meal that I normally have before races. The race, however, didn't start until 9 AM so I felt that things, digestion wise, would be okay. I was correct - no problems whatsoever.
At about 8:25 we walked the 800 metres to the start at Belfast City Hall. I did a short walk/jog to warm up and then Bonnie took my warm up items of clothing and I lined up between the 4:30 and 5:00 standard bearers.
After my tough Boston Marathon, I didn't have a firm time goal in mind but was thinking in the 4:30 range. I would decide how hard to apply myself as the race progressed. The course is made up of pretty much rolling terrain with a few long inclines and declines but no steep hills. There were two segments where the wind was bothersome as we were running directly into it with no shelter. Temperature for the race was good as it stayed around 8 C. It was overcast for over an hour and a half, then we had drizzle followed by a period of steady rain and we finished under overcast skies again.
Off the more than 17 thousand participants, only about 2500 of us were running the full marathon. The rest were relay runners. The relay part replaced the marathon walk as their main charity segment of the event. Because of this the field did not string out much and things were congested throughout the entire race. I just ran with the crowd and found myself finishing the first 5 km segment at an average pace of 6 min/km. I felt pretty comfortable with that pace and decided that I would try to maintain it. There was one major recurring problem with this race. The relay exchange stations ( four of them ) were a nightmare. Not only did the organizers not have a separate space for marathoners to pass by them but the participants were crowded in so that there was only a single or double pathway through. Add to that the stopping of people to exchange their chip and some walking back to connect with missed team members meant that I was brought to a complete stop a number of times. Other than that and a windy segment of the course near the start along with a 4 km run along the Irish Sea coast directly into a strong wind and rain, the race was excellent. I reached the half marathon mat in a shade over 2 hours , 7 minutes. I was right on my 6 minute average pace and felt good. I actually picked up the pace a bit for the second half. I felt good all the way to the finish and ran the last 2 1/2 km at a pretty decent clip. After the race, I felt much better than after Boston.
The finish area was complete chaos. I picked up my medal, a bottle of water, and a bag with my finishing shirt ( pretty bland white technical short sleeve T ) and tried to get to the food area. However, I had to leave the participants finish area and move through the crowds to a building nearby where the food was. I decided to struggle through to where Bonnie was waiting with warm clothing. I Put on long pants and a jacket and we walked the 2 1/2 km back to our hotel.
Overall this was an excellent race. I would not run it again though, unless they did something different with the relay situation and had a better situation at the finish.
Gun time: 4:12:29 Chip Time: 4:10:08 Garmin distance measured: 42. 53 Km
Finishing Position: 1128/2329
My 5 km split times are listed below along with my average pace and average heart rate for each segment.

#1: 30:05 - 6:01 min/km - 142 bpm
#2: 29:44 - 5:56 min/km - 150 bpm
#3: 30:19 - 6:03 min/km - 144 bpm
#4: 29:45 - 5:56 min/km - 146 bpm
#5: 29:06 - 5:49 min/km - 147 bpm
#6: 29:42 - 5:56 min/km - 145 bpm
# 7: 28:55 - 5:46 min/km - 149 bpm
#8: 29:14 - 5:50 min/km - 151 bpm
#9: 13:24 - 5:18 min/km - 155 bpm ( Segment 9 was 2.53 km )

Ken

[Spirit Unleashed]

There you go again, doing a fantastic job! Kudos.

[Habs4ever]

No stopping the energizer Tortoise!

[Jwolf]

Great marathon. Ken! Nice negative splitting.

You are my marathon hero.

I love Ireland and this is one that's been ok my radar but your description of the congestion with the relay sounds annoying. It sounds like the full marathon is an afterthought.

[purdy65]

Wow! Nicely done! Now BQ -15!

Congratulations!

Enjoy the rest of your travels!

[HCcD]

Awesome .. Run Ken Run !!!

[grimskot]

Congratulations! Nice job

[Robinandamelia]

Looks like a well excuted race Ken, and so soon after Boston. Nice work

[Doonst]

20 minutes ahead of your goal, that's true revenge! What a life you lead!

[5km]

Congratulations. Well done!

[La]

I want to be like you when I grow up.

Well done!

[Avis]

Very impressive running here, Ken, especially for a second marathon in two weeks. I imagine the scenery was nice along the sea coast--or were you too busy dodging other runners to see much of it? Anyway, congratulations!

[Stampie]

Congrats on another Marathon Ken, well done!

Yup, this qualifies you as a Marathon Maniac.

[Spirit Unleashed]

excellent jacket