While the world was clinking champagne glasses and swinging along to Auld Lang Syne, we lined up at the start of the Zurich New Year’s Marathon with a collection of other lunatics and attempted to stave off the cold. At midnight, to the cheers of a handful of hardy supporters, we set off into the dark, foggy night on the first of our twelve marathons for Cystic Fibrosis. To say we weren’t in the best of shape would probably be an understatement. As Christmas Excess was going to be joining us for the ride we had decided to adopt a “take it handy” strategy towards this marathon. The first few minutes of the race were spent admiring the fireworks that lit up the sky as the good folk of Zurich rang in the new year. While it lasted this was a pleasant distraction. But as the festivities began to wane the realisation slowly set in - we had a long night ahead of us.

The course was mostly trail – 3 laps of a park area around a lake. The fog came down heavy and we soon found ourselves running with only a couple of metres visibility ahead of us. As there were no markers it was almost impossible to judge our speed or how far we had gone. Every so often dim lights would appear ahead in the distance and we would reach a drinks station where hardy volunteers handed out cups of warm water with salt. We did the first 10 km in 55 minutes – not bad considering the conditions. We ran for a while with a bunch of about five or six guys one of whom fell flat on his face at one point after tripping over a root sticking up through the ground. As the race developed the field inevitably broke up and for about an hour Alan and I found ourselves running alone. This made it even harder to judge our pace and our time began to drift. Every so often we would see runners headlamps appearing out of the fog on the other side of the lake bobbing up and down as they went along.

As the night wore on and fatigue crept in the experience became ever more surreal. The heavy fog lent a kind of spooky feel to the whole affair and with voices echoing off the lake and people appearing suddenly out of the darkness it felt like being trapped in some puragtorial nightmare. With all semblance of a respectable time gone out the window we staggered through the last 10km and crossed the line in 4:19. One down, eleven to go.

Back in the sports centre, we were presented with a bag of museli each for our efforts in being the first (only) Irishmen over the line. A bag of museli?! Were they taking the piss? Our disappointment was soon put aside however when the presenter announced that we now held the distinction of having run the fastest marathon by Irishmen thus far in 2008. Our glory may be shortlived but we can always tell our grandkids that, for however long our miserable time stands, we once held the Irish marathon record for 2008! That made it all worthwhile.

Darren

Zurich Race Info

Marathon Type: 70% trail, 30% Asphalt

Temperature: -5 degrees

Conditions: Cold, dark, foggy.

No. of participants: 95

Entry Fee: 40 euro