Sharon Newman writes: In total, more than 17,000 runners ran over the six routes of the weekend, although only a mere 800 entered the marathon.
The last overseas marathon we ran was in Rotterdam in 2017, I’ve been itching to do another race abroad for a while and since we got married in Cyprus 21 years ago I thought it would be nice to revisit the landmark where it all began, Limassol.
I signed up and as soon as I told Simon he wanted to do it too! I signed Simon up for the marathon although later on he decided to drop down to the half after not being able to shake off his ongoing Plantar Fasciitis.
We arrived on the Wednesday with a plan to collect our race numbers from the Expo on the Thursday or Friday, this way it gives us a few days to see the sites and start enjoying our holiday, hoping to revisit the hotel and Chapel where we got married all those years ago.
The very next day we decided to walk the 4 miles to collect our numbers, the Expo wasn’t signposted very well which caused our daily step counting to go off the rails, on arrival we both went to our separate pens to collect the number and t-shirts, Simon was only a few minutes but for some reason my number wasn’t there, after frantically searching for emails and calling assistance they finally found it and I could start relaxing! We took a few photos and headed off to the beach.
We were given a 3 day bus ticket courtesy of the Limassol marathon, our hotel was a 15 minute bus journey to the start, we left the hotel on Sunday morning at 06:15 (04:15 UK time!) the overcrowding on the bus was very similar to a London tube in rush hour….it all added to the excitement of marathon day.
As all runners do we headed straight to the portaloos before searching for the bag drop, once found it was another trip to the portaloos before heading to my allocated start pen. There wasn’t a cloud in sight and with temperatures already souring at 20 degrees and expected to peak at 27 degrees I knew it was going to make the marathon harder than normal but I wasn’t going to let that stop after all the months of training I’ve done.
The countdown is on, music blasting, people playing the drums, adrenaline pumping, 10.9.8……I was off, Simon shouting good luck from the sidelines while I was running down the beach front, gorgeous views of the sea to my right and spectators cheering on from the left. The course is known for being a fast, flat and coastal route, highly recommend for anyone wanting something a little different than the usual city marathons.
For the first few miles we headed West along the seafront through the Old Port then the course took us slightly inland past a huge shopping mall before turning back to head towards where we first started, I was on about 11 miles when I saw Simon cheering on from the sidelines, he had already finished his half marathon and wearing his medal.
I continued running along the sea front past our hotel, at this point there wasn’t that many spectators, only a handful at each water station, I quite enjoyed the Coca cola being offered along with the usual water and gels. Around mile 17 it started getting hotter, there was no place to hide from the sun for a tiny bit of shade, my pace started slowing down and I needed to cool down!
After heading East we got to the final turn around point and we were on our journey back, this meant running past the hotel once more, along the route there were people dropping out with heat exhaustion but luckily there were plenty of paramedics around. On the final few miles my run became a walk/jog, I was next to a bloke in a wheelchair who asked if I could use his mobile phone to video him while on route, after a few minutes I thought I need to get on with this and finish, the heat was exhausting, I passed our hotel and with only a parkrun or so to go I started picking up the pace.
The time I had hoped for had already passed, this marathon was hard work, I think, no I needed to finish now….the final stretch, we turned left onto the wooden walkway which headed towards the finish line, still around half a mile to go…this was the longest half a mile ever, then I heard Simon shouting my name and so I sprinted the final 100mtrs through the finish line.
Sharon: Limassol marathon completed. 05:25:41
Simon: Limassol half marathon completed. 01:40:25