ING Europe Marathon

ING Europe Marathon and Half Marathon – Luxembourg Ville, Luxembourg.I traveled to Luxembourg this past weekend to compete in my second ever Half Marathon.  I had two months between my soul sucking, very hilly race at the Deutsche Weinstraße half marathon and this one.  I took my training more seriously and incorporated some speed work coupled with hills and it paid off!  I PR’d my 13.1 miles at 1h35 (7’13 pace), placing 18th amongst 2253 women!

The start of the race was like nothing I had previously experienced.  The 10,000 runners were divided into start groups A through F, based on their previous race times, where A would depart the start line at the gun time with each subsequent group following in spaced increments. I started with the A group and in the second row behind the professional runners, holy intimidation!  At the sound of the gun, chaos ensued – streamers went flying, wrapped around your limbs, and elbows aggressively jabbed at you from the other runners, not to mention some kicking and near tripping.  This lead to a very speedy start off the line, but I avoided a trampling, SUCCESS.

The Luxembourg course was much more loaded with crowds than our previous one, the Deutsche Weinstraße, which made a huge difference, and having learned my hydration lesson the hard way last time, we stopped at EVERY water station available for a combination of drinking and bathing in the water provided.  Eventually I will learn how to drink out of those dang plastic cups without either choking or having to come to a shuffle to effectively swallow.  The final 5k was the loneliest stretch, as it came back to where it all began outside of the bustling city, and it was unfortunately an UPHILL slog.  But hey, I trained to hammer out the hills, so it didn’t feel remotely close to the horror of the last race’s hills.

A special thanks to my inspiring training partner/race day cheerleader, Magin Day, and my fiancee , Eric, whom ran the Marathon that night in a sub 3!

Race Day Photo Album