https://www.strava.com/activities/11177761397
The Lake Garda Half was never a goal race. The trip came about as some-time half marathoner and long time friend, Kevin, wanted to do a race abroad. He had found the race and considering the company and the location, it was too good to turn down. The race came 3 weeks after Dunboyne 10K and the only guidance from Seán was to “enjoy it”. An open statement that left me with plenty of wiggle room to decide what to do. With the trip not being orientated around a goal time, the preparations in the days leading to the race were less than ideal – but that is ok because the race was about much more than running a fast time. The course was flat overall but uneven in the distribution of its flatness. Weather was also a variable and heat was very much on the menu. Volunteers at the race number pickup were speaking a lot about hydration and managing the conditions. On the flight over, I looked at some previous iterations of the race and reckoned that I would run around 1:20. I hadn’t considered the weather but I did think about my fitness in general, my ability to hold 3:45s pretty consistently and a flat course overall. It often happens that I decide on a time and run that time – I am unable to fully decide if I am a mystic of the running world or if I will into existence whatever time I decide I am going to run. I’ll let you decide.
10K: 37:26
The race was point to point and started in the town of Arco, the halfway point between were the marathon starts and finishes. There was a good buzz around the town, owing much to the weather. The temperature was 23 degrees and my heart rate on my 2K warm up was through the roof. My legs felt pretty heavy as well and that was purely down to tiredness of the trip and diet. After the warm up, I was unsure how the race was going to pan out and this was mainly due to how hot it was. I haven’t been in heat like this in a while, let alone ran in it, so I was a little cautious as the gun went. Really surprisingly, the front of the field went out very hard and after about 400 metres, there were about 100 people in front of me. For a moment, I contemplated pushing on to find a group and good positioning but then I quickly remembered that I was not racing and I’m a pale Irish guy in the sun. I chilled and the watch clicked a 3:44 first kilometre. I can only describe the effort as being right on the precipice between comfortable and working and feeling like at any moment it could tip into the red. But I was enjoying myself and that was the main thing.
Naturally, after the second K, such a large amount of people came back to me that I lost count. People were blowing up on the downhill second K of a half marathon. I’ve never seen the likes. I had also found a good group to work with. I was running with the first female and she had a pacer in front of her who was taking the not insignificant headwind that was blowing off the lake. Behind me was my boy Vincent, a man who I spent the rest of the race with and finished with. The first female had a lad on the bike filming her and speaking in German but from what I could gage, she was feeling pretty good. I tucked in behind her and we whiled away the next few kilometres. The route had a good few turns along the towpath and some dramatic declines followed by immediate inclines as the towpath went under roads and bridges. I took a cup of “aqua” from the first water stop and threw it over my head, only to discover it was actually some sort of isotonic drink and I was now a sticky mess. Luckily I grabbed another cup before the end of the station and was able to take on enough to keep the feeling of dehydration from my mouth.
At 8K, the towpath took us into a village by the lake and the surface turned to cobbles. There is much less purchase on the vaporflys from this surface but it was going to get worse later in the race. The first female began to struggle at this point as she was dropping off her pacer. Both myself and Vincent moved up and she slipped in behind us but was noticeably slowing down. Her mate on the bike disappeared behind us only to reappear a couple of minutes later with some instructions for her and the pacer. I can only assume he was checking on where the second female was and he signalled to the pacer that he can push on. And push on he did – the man literally just burned us all and our group of 4 was down to 3 and would be down to 2 by the 10K mark. Mercifully, the next part of the course had come up off the bottom of the river and climbed a small bit onto the main road and this was sheltered from the sun (come in she said I’ll give ye…). Myself and Vincent went through 10K in 37:26.
10K – 16K: 22:15 (59:41)
Vincent was sitting in behind me and was almost about to start pissing me off as he had sat in for a while and I was taking the wind. We went through a water stop and I got a cup but Vincent, unbeknownst to me, got a bottle. He slotted in behind me again after the water station and offered me a drink of his bottle. It was at this moment that I knew this guy was a bo$$. He told me he was aiming for anything under 1:20 and he was in the final stages of prepping for Copenhagen marathon next month. This suited me down to the ground so we agreed to work together. Vincent took his turn with leading and took the next 4 or so kilometres. We went into tunnels at this stage so it was now much, much cooler. We locked into a pace and the next few K went off without any fanfare. Coming out of the tunnel, my watch split a 3:27 for the 15th K. I knew this couldn’t be right as we were not going that fast, and the course was slightly uphill at this stage, and my suspicions were confirmed when the 15th K marker was about 200m up ahead. The tunnel had fucked with my watch so I was now a good bit behind in distance than were the watch said. This didn’t bother me too much, knowing that we were still in and around 1:20 pace with 6 K to go.
Up ahead, I could see the police had the road closed and were signalling us down to the towpath beside the water again. I didn’t think much of this until I realised that the route to the towpath was a hairpin turn down the steepest hill I have ever tried to run down. Both myself and Vincent were basically reduced to a skip/walk shuffle dance hybrid type thing, that was not conducive to this point in the race. We were now also out in the open and the temperature had noticeably increased. Uh oh.
17K – 21.1K: 20:17 (1:19:58)
I found it extremely difficult to get going again after slowing down for the hill. Vincent had started to pull away from me and I was now in solo death march territory, with the heat ratcheting up, and there was no escape. I did a quick body scan and checked the watch. I added in 40 seconds to account for the difference in lap markers to my watch and knew I had 15:30 to do about 4K, or thereabouts, to come in under 1:20. The enjoyment factor was now gone. I wasn’t so much racing from here on in but I would have considered myself complacent if at the point in the race where it becomes difficult, I default to “I’m only here to have fun and fun only” and slow right down, especially when I can come in under 1:20 without some mad sprint to the finish.
The second to last surprise of this race was now upon me. The towpath had turned to gravel. Not the nice, compact, brown coloured gravel that is lovely to run on, but uneven, rocky and dusty gravel. Kilometres 17 – 19 were spent watching every step to make sure I didn’t stamp on a rock. I tried to run right on the edge of the water, where there was concrete slabbing, but it was so close to the water that my clumsy nature put me at risk of tumbling into the lake. I zigzagged back onto the gravel and felt a bolt of relief when the towpath ended, we climbed a short, sharp hill and were back onto the road.
Another body scan commenced. I am not in pain anywhere but I am just very tired and very dehydrated. I am also very hot. There is just over 2K to go and anyone can run 2K, right?
Anyone can, indeed, run 2K and the last 2K of this race moved off the road to the footpath running parallel to the road. The footpath was slightly elevated off the road and this meant that the numerous entrances to Italian lakeside villas had steep declines to the driveway and then an immediate incline. It was impossible to find any rhythm and it felt like I was jumping up and down big curbs with every few steps. The course was now a long drag uphill to the finish, which didn’t really aid matters. Up ahead, I did start to see Vincent coming back to me and wasn’t sure if I was speeding up, if he was slowing down or both. My effort felt pretty high and I tried to not look at the watch so as to not worry about how long was left (as the watch was wrong). It was just time to get home. Approaching the 21 K mark, the route turned down windy, cobblestoned streets and there were now crowds on both side of the route. This was basically the first time we had seen people because most of the route was inaccessible to pedestrians. I checked the watch and had a minute to get under 1:20. I put the foot down. Spurred on by the crowd, I caught up to Vincent, who was now in his own pain cave, and shouted at him and urged him to pick it up. With 100 metres to go, the finish line was still not in sight but there was the final brain dead, hairpin turn of the course. The cobblestone road took a hard right and then went down a very steep hill with the gantry at the end. Both myself and Vincent crossed the line together but we didn’t know what our time was as the time on the gantry was for the marathon. We both sprawled out on the deck and had a lovely chat about the race and how beautiful the course was. It really had been the most stunning and picturesque route I have ever run and it was in a race. I found some shade, some factor 50 and asked the timekeeper when the results were going online. As I was not in the ‘competitive’ race, which means not part of an Italian or German club, my result would be online in a couple days time. My utter bemusement with this was palpable and the man, probably feeling sorry for me, eventually checked my result and showed that I had finished 13th overall in 1:19:58. I waited for Kevin and the other lads to finish and we all indulged in some celebratory gelato. A fine end to a fine morning.
Buckets of Rain 