Great Limerick Virtual Challenge 2020 (28th Dec)

Like so many events in 2020, the Great Limerick Run became a virtual event, where contestants could run a variety of distances from 5k to marathon on any day between 24th December and 1st January, record their run on a GPS watch and submit their time online. Joan Flynn and James Cribbin chose to run the marathon distance on Monday 28th December. It’s hard to run a marathon in normal circumstances, but even harder on your own, so they started with the Mullingar Ekiden, running stage one for their teams but carrying on and following the Ekiden route most of the way, only amending the route slightly to avoid Mullingar town at the end when marathon fatigue sets in and you just need to keep going without any sudden pace changes or distractions at traffic junctions. Running along with the Ekiden runners gave them others to run with for a lot of the way, and of course they enjoyed great encouragement as they passed through each Ekiden change over point. It was still very tough going though in wet, windy and very cold conditions but both were delighted to finish in a comfortable 3 hours 12 minutes 16 seconds, placing James 8th man and Joan 3rd woman. Joan is no stranger to the distance but for James it was his first time completing the classic distance, so he was particularly satisfied. Congratulations to the two of them on two fine performances.