The Challenge...32 Marathons, 32 Counties, 32 Days
Gerry and Ken's Blog...

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Marathon 20 - Donegal

Well, we knew it was coming - a wet day! We've been lucky enough so far in avoiding starting our runs in the rain but the rain today came down in sheets.

Our race headquarters for the day was Finn Valley Athletic Club in Ballybofey - fantastic facilities and fantastic people. Particular mention to Patsy McGonagle (Team Manager of the Senior Irish Athletics team) and his man on the ground for the day, Mark Connolly, who set out a nice flat route. We must also praise the super team of marshals who stood in the rain for hours handing out water bottles and directing traffic.

It was great to see two of my (KW) aunties there today who both walked their first half marathon, and in the rain! We also got great support from Gerry's sister Mary and her three brilliant kids (Mark, Andrew and Lucy) - this is their fourteenth day to join us and cheer us on!!

I started the run today a little slower than Gerry, running the first few miles with Jessica, our American friend. Once my legs warmed up though I looked down the road and realised that Gerry was only a few hundred metres ahead. 'This is the Day' I thought to myself that I'm going to be able to run alongside my mate. The last time we were running together was the end of mile 13 in Waterford on day 7. By mile 5 today I had made up the distance and as I neared Gerry I tapped him on the shoulder - he got some surprise but we were both thrilled that we were once again running shoulder to shoulder. Given the size of this challenge and the mental focus needed to get through it all, I have rarely let myself get either too low or too excited over the last 20 days. This control disappeared momentarily today though once I caught up with Gerry - I was genuinely delighted. Although the rain continued to pour down neither of us minded, we were both just enjoying the run.

Given that my challenge over the last two weeks has been to simply finish each day, I have not been paying close attention to the mile splits on my watch - I haven't been going fast enough. Today, though, we were at mile 23 before we both realised that we had been running too fast. Our target time is any where between 4:10 and 4:45. Anything faster than that and we are opening ourselves to risks - injury/burning out etc. So we were quite surprised to see that with three miles to go we were at sub 4 hour pace. We decided to back off a little and cruise home the last few miles, finishing in 4:03.

Special mention to Paula, Freddie and Nigel, friends from home who all made surprising appearances today.

After a great physio session I was chuffed to learn that my aunties had brought along a bit of home cooking for our gang - lovely soup, brown bread and buns. Sure I'd run 26 miles for that alone :-)

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