Olbia21 Half Marathon 2024

10 Things I Think About The Olbia21 Half Marathon

1. Parco Fausto Noce

I think that Cork City Council need to go to Olbia to see how you build a park, I’m sure they’d be happy with a trip to the sunshine. Olbia has the most perfect running park I have ever seen. It has a track, a huge playground, two fountains, a one kilometre road width loop and a two kilometre loop all withing a tiny footprint that would fit anywhere in Glanmire. It was so perfect that I couldn’t resist doing a session on Thursday that probably wasn’t the best idea with a half marathon on Sunday.

2. Bureaucracy

I think that Italian races are the hardest to enter. It is almost like they don’t want any people like me running. French races require a medical certificate which is fine, Italian races need a medical certificate and evidence of affiliation to a world athletics affiliated club which is harder to get than you’d think. I thought I’d fixed it all by paying €15 for a Runcard which I presumed would make everything ok, money normally makes problems go away.

3. Are There Any Kenyans?

I think that the registration was full of surprises. I ran down to the square in the sunshine on Saturday to collect my number. When I got there, I saw my envelope with the sticker on it saying, “not certified”. I was well prepared for this, I had all my three documents ready, the medical cert, the Athletics Ireland screenshot and the Runcard. I showed them and was quickly given my envelope which I was delighted with. I jokingly asked the organizers if there were any Kenyans running, “yes, they are sitting over there in the café”, and sure enough there they were. All chances of a podium and the €700 for first were gone.

4. Fake Josh Kerr

I think that if the Kenyans weren’t enough of a surprise when I got to the start I met a fella who looked suspiciously like Josh Kerr, dressed head to toe in the professional Brooks gear and hanging around with a girl wearing a Scottish clubs singlet. He wasn’t actually Josh Kerr but a Slovakian version. We traded PBs and discussed the heat before we were called to line up for the start.

5. Umbrella

I think that the start of the race was excellent. This is the first race I have been at where there was a five minute dancing performance involving the Umbrellas and the Rhianna song. It was very good; I was lined up in between the two Kenyans who weren’t as impressed with the length of time that the performance was taking. When the dancing finished the gun was fired and off we went in the sunshine towards the big wheel before looping back over the big bridge.

6. 15%

I think that my race was over after two miles. After 100m it was obvious that the Kenyan would win as he ran off with two fellas that were doing the 10k. I was left with Fake Josh Kerr, and a few handy looking locals some of whom were doing the 10k. We had a nice group for about a mile before I started to feel the heat, after two miles I was boiling and reluctantly had to drop off into no mans land.

7. Solo

I think that being solo in a half marathon from two miles to the end is no fun. Up ahead once the 10k runners turned off at about 6k I counted that I was in 5th which wasn’t too bad. 4th was not catchable and there was no one behind so there wasn’t much to run for. The only entertainment I had was the wild gesticulations and musical language of the drivers who were being stopped from driving down the road.

8. Go to Beach

I think that the best part of the race was the section along the Pittulongu beach. The problem was that getting to the beach involved running up a very steep mile long hill to get to the beach. The beach was worth it though and if I still used Instagram the pictures would be excellent and make everyone want to run the race.

9. Heat Training

I think that when running in the heat it is very important not to worry about Strava. I spent the whole race looking at my watch seeing the average pace gradually drift higher and higher. I simply can’t run when it gets over 21 degrees, that seems to be the cut off. I just get slower and slower. I know how it feels at this stage so I just ran home as best I could. Up ahead there was a brief moment where I thought I might get 4th as Francesco who had won the Alghero race I ran last year was sent the wrong way at a roundabout but he got going again and held me off easily enough.

10. Don’t Run with Runcard

I think that the main lesson I learnt from the race was that if you are running a race in Italy don’t use Runcard. Runcard is like running a BHAA race as an unregistered runner, you aren’t eligible for any prizes. I just missed the podium because I had to checkout of the AirBnB, I asked if there was any prize for 5th and was given a nice bottle of Sardinian wine but without the trip to the podium. When I was walking back to the car I met Francesco who told me that even if I had come 4th I still wouldn’t have gotten the €250 as Runcard runners aren’t eligible for prizes. All you should enter with is the medical cert and the evidence of Athletics Ireland membership. Less is more when it comes to entering Italian races. Just as well I did that great session in the lovely park on Thursday.

Les Foulées d'Orléans Half Marathon 2024

10 Things I Think About Les Foulées d'Orléans Half Marathon

1. Old Orléans

I think that the best way of finding races abroad is to find the race after you’ve booked the trip. We were going to Paris for the weekend but there were no races on in Paris which was terrible so I looked a bit outside Paris and found a race in Orléans that looked nice. They even had a 10k and a 5k on before the half marathon so Rhona could do a race too.

2. Electric Car

I think that Michael Herlihy is right about Electric cars. They are great. No one wants to drive one so the rental car companies will give them to you for next to nothing. Fortunately, Orléans is very close to Paris so I didn’t have to risk charging it so it was like having a proper car like a Volkswagen Scirocco just that it didn’t make any noise.

3. Two Minute Warm Up

I think that this might have been my shortest warm up for a race. The parking for the race was very convenient right by the Cathedral only 100m from the start in a big underground car park. There was even a toilet in the car park. Unfortunately, I missed the turn off for Orléans because I was too relaxed in the silent electric car so we were slightly late for the 10k that Rhona had planned to do. I ran up to the registration and switched her to the 5k using my excellent French. There were 30 minutes between the end of the 5k and the start of the half but by the time I had installed magic shoes everyone had lined up for the half so skipped the warmup and negotiated my way to the front.

4. Streets of Orléans

I think that the opening loop of the town was lovely. I asked one of the guys on the start line where the course went. He told me that we did a warmup lap of the town before heading out to the river. It was a lovely lap of the cobbled streets, sort of like the races in Spain but in France. The only blight on the course was a Starbucks café at a sharp right-hand corner, other than that it looked like it would have looked in the 1800s.

5. Banks of the Lovely Loire

I think that the race route was wonderful. After the lap of the old town we ran over a bridge to the otherside of the Loire and did a little loop that made up the 5k before heading out on a Paris Roubaix style path along the banks of the Loire. We exited the Paris Roubaix section by turning right onto a bigger bridge. We then turned right again off the big bridge heading back to the town centre on a slightly downhill cycle path. It was lovely and sunny with enough heat to make the locals head for the shade where possible.

6. Out of Sight

I think that the local Ryan Creech must be very good. After 100m it was clear that I wasn’t going to win as the local Ryan Creech had already checked out. He was so much better than us that they put a second motorbike in front of our group. For a moment I thought that he might have pulled out and that we were in the lead but I could hear the friends of the people I was running with saying that we were the deuxième.

7. The Battle for Second

I think that I did very well in the battle for second. There were two other runners in the group. They both looked like they were far better than me and had friends on the course handing them those flexible flasks that mountain runners use. We had to do two laps of the course to make up the half marathon. It was great to do two laps as I got to see the finishing straight twice. It was as good a finish as you can get finishing right in front of the huge cathedral which is possibly the most impressive cathedral that I have ever seen.

 8. Paris - Orléans

I think that my tactics for the race worked perfectly. My group stayed together until the final Paris Roubaix section at 10 miles where I made my move, well in my head it was a move. Imagining myself like a Tom Boonen or Mathieu Van Der Poel I dropped the group and got a slight gap before we turned off onto the bridge and back onto the downhill cycle path to the finish. I had a motorbike in front of me clearing the way. A motorbike in front is great motivation to keep going.

9. Joan of Arc

I think that the finish of the race was very nice. I wish I had of been more confident of my second position as I had to work very hard for the last uphill mile. It would have been nice to have enjoyed seeing the big statue of Joan of Arc before turning into the home straight up to the Cathedral. Instead, I sprinted as hard as I could when I saw the Cathedral as I was sure there was someone right behind me which there wasn’t due to my devastating attack in the last secteur.

 10. L'opportunité C'est Enorme

I think that I will have to go back and learn more French. After the race the monsieur with the mic came over and asked me for an interview in French. I gave a full Ronan O’Gara style interview where I probably insulted the whole town by calling the Cathedral an Église. I didn’t understand the questions he was asking me so I reverted to the french leaving cert oral tactics of saying the sentences I knew about running a race. Then I went on the podium and got half a meter of local chocolate and €75, what more could you want.

https://www.larep.fr/orleans-45000/sports/foulees-d-orleans-revivez-en-images-la-9e-edition-qui-a-attire-3-000-coureurs-ce-dimanche-matin_14486095/