Thursday, June 27, 2013

The return to Portumna 50km

This was my second attempt at the Portumna 50km and I have to say back in February or April I was  hopefully of knocking maybe 20min+ off of last years time,

However, that was not to be.

I suppose first thing's first, the last long run of 20mile+ I did was at the start of May when I paced 5hrs at the Limerick marathon, add to this that I really didn't fully properly get back into training after either the Connemara Ultra or Limerick and finally I really did a number on my legs on the Calbot Trail.

I knew my legs weren't right going into this but figured I'll give it a shot, see if i can shave anytime of last years time and worst come to worst I'll put it down as a sort of training run.

A slightly later start then last year as the 50km started at 10am this time around, made the journey on my own this year as well as my wife had other commitments so was unable to be my fan base.

Courtesy of Peter Mooney
Started off aiming for something under 9:00min/mile, all was going reasonable well until mile 10 when I started to just feel awful in general. In an attempt to feel better I slowed down and actually ended up walking for a short while.


Very much feeling the pain!,
Courtesy of Peter Mooney
Mile 16 onwards turned into a slog and it was effectively run/walk all the way to the finish after that.

I'm a stubbern fecker when I want to be so I refused to drop out and give myself a DNF even though my muscles in my legs (particularly my left leg) were absolutely killing me

Was this a smart idea? Of course it wasn't. But that didn't stop me from being an idiot at the time.

Finish Time: 5:23:24
Garmin log of the event.

On a side note, I will say that my Garmin Forerunner 305 battery has really degraded alot lately, in April I just barely got 6hrs 30min out of it for the Connemara Ultra.   During Portumna it died at 4hours 50min and since then I've started to get battery warnings more often.