Ballyhoura Moonlight Challange

19 January, 2019 - Mark Horvath

Ballyhoura Moonlight Challenge

I’ve decided that I am concentrating on “speed” in the beginning of the year, so I’ll do the half marathon races in the beginning of the year, and as usual Sarah McCormack from Missing Link Coaching did my training programme according to it and it was going well.
On the Event day I have found out it is not a race, but as it happened before on these events people still run it as fast as they can. The Ballyhoura Luxury Hostel was great as usual and if you are in the area that is definitely a good place to stay.
The race event was organized perfectly, so many helpers took their Friday night and helped to the runners instead of sleeping, so a big thanks to all of them, it is some dedication… and fantastic to have people like them in our little running community.
So, we got to the start line with bus. I could see the lights coming down on one of the hills. We all cheered the marathoners who were passing through and Robbie took us down to the start line I was taking of my jacket as I wanted to run without it when Robbie was asking us if we mind to start earlier, and everyone said yes, so I didn’t argue (there was many races when they waited for me to start.
The start was fast and a disaster for me because I was still trying to put away my jacket and I dropped my bottle. In the dark I couldn’t really figure out who was on front, but I was running 5th place and the guys were going fast enough for a not race event, so I was happy, soon I moved up to the front and Dave was running behind me and we got to the bottom of the Seefin climb and Dave moved up. I felt like he went to fast for me so I just settled to my pace (I planned 6:00-6:30 pace for this part and I was doing that). We passed a lot of marathoners and I tried to work out how far are the chasers, but it was hard to say if I see the passed marathoners or the chasers. Dave built up like a 50m lead on me, but I wasn’t worried at this stage I kept my head down and I was hoping it will change around. Not much later Dave started to walk/run, so I was hoping I can catch him on the steeper bit and I did, so I was happy and I kept going, but I knew that he is a very fast runner so I wasn’t calm.
On the top of Seefin I thought I will have a good downhill, but it was disappointing, because I couldn’t see much from the fog and I couldn’t run the pace I wanted. Also, my ankle that was twisted in December started to give me trouble and I was worry about that the tough downhill will cause trouble. If it wasn’t enough, I felt like my stomach was giving me trouble as well on the downhills, I planned to take a gel at 5k, 10k, 15k, but after 5 k I stopped taking anything (the stomach issue might have been caused by the waist bag I had, it did give me trouble before and I also ate some questionable sour cream, so I was hoping Dave will be given up and he doesn’t want to race anymore. I was wrong, very wrong once we got the road section, he was right behind me. I didn’t look back, I just asked is that you Dave, he said yes. I thought he will just run through me I was quite in a bad shape at that time, but he just stacked behind me and I wasn’t pushing to try to shake him off, I just kept my energy for later.
We passed so many people who I know, but I couldn’t recognize most of the time from the back who it was, but thanks for the good words on the course as always. From around 12K we didn’t pass many marathoners anymore, I think Mick Hanney was the last one for long time. I remember after around 13K we were going down a hill and my inner thigh started to give me trouble and I thought it is over I can’t run downhills and we get to the woody section next to the road jumping between trees and luckily it was a little bit uphill and I recovered a bit, Dave was still behind me sometimes a little closer sometimes a little further, but it was good to feel that I controlled the pace. Later he told me the uphill’s didn’t go well for him.
The last uphill came and I know this is where I have to build a little gap this is where we can see if he can come with me he will beat me on the downhill, but if I can build a gap I can finish ahead of him. I got to the top and there was only 4 k was left and I couldn’t see his light, I tried to get the fist part of the downhill fast to make sure I will get out of his sight for good and I thought it worked but soon his lights appeared, there was also a marathoner ahead (I think it was Thomas Klimas) who gave me a good chasing pace, so it kept my mind busy and I looked back just to make sure that Dave is not closing on me, but we pretty much kept the distance he might have got a little closer to me at the end, but it didn’t matter as we “didn’t race”. I stopped the clock at 1:44:57 and my target was under 1:45:00, so I did it and I am happy, Dave was maybe 10 second behind me
Well done Dave, you gave me a hard time, but I enjoyed it and I hope we can have more like this in the future, maybe not for the first place, but still good battle or maybe even for the first place.
I had a food at the hostel and it was fantastic. It was a great time out there and I am glad that the MMRA/IMRA racing season started again and I am looking forward to see next year event as a race maybe, hopefully there will be at least one race that I can win this year.