Marathon Diary by Derrick Long
Flight and accommodation very reasonable – €300 should do the trick, early bird race entry fee included Adidas tech shirt and usual goodies.
Backroom team in place
The marathon course starts in the town of Cascais and heads towards the city of Oeiras running parallel to the Atlantic ocean ,the course passes the palace of Marquis of Pombal (cobbled streets *ouch*) and through the Praca do Comercion (cobbled streets, more ouch), before heading downtown to Rossio. The route returns to the waterfront and joins the half marathon runners before finishing in Parque das Nascoes.
Getting to the start line involves a metro from Lisbon to Cais do Sodre train station, from there it’s a 40min trip to the start line, free transport for runners .
The race starts at 8.30am and in true RocknRoll fashion the music and entertainment is from beginning thru to the end, refreshments every 3 miles, good crowds at the start and finish, sparse during the course 🙁
Finish line in sight at 3hrs 54mins (happy with that) great atmosphere!
The hard part: Watered fed and all medalled up, now came the tricky bit – finding a pub to look at Ire v Arg, alas que sera!
Would I recommend? Go for it! Phew, slainte….
p.s Thanks to Emily for the words of support before Tuesday night’s session, I had dropped by the clubhouse but had just left for an important appointment with a foam roller. Enjoy the pic of my backroom team, and the medal.
Yours in running,
Derrick
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