Mauritius marathon - number 75 and 2nd lady

It can be a gamble entering the first edition of an event, but the Mauritius marathon went very smoothly. My hotel, Les Pavillons was part of a hotel group sponsoring the marathon, and I’d had a few outrageously lazy days lying on a sunlounger under a palm tree on the beach, reading, snoozing, sipping cocktails and going for dips in the sea. Friday’s race briefing was at another hotel in the same group, the Tamassa on the south coast near Bel Ombre, which is still very nice but not quite as indulgent and luxurious as mine. I got chatting to a girl there who has whispered seductive thoughts in my ear: she’s running marathons on the 7 continents. Hmmmm, yet another excuse to go on even further flung holidays… The briefing was by a hunky French doctor and featured the race director, a charming French gentleman with experience of Olympic events. We were in good hands.

The race started at 6.30am on Sunday, plenty of time to get the bulk of it done before it got warm. The route wrapped around the south western corner of the island, starting at an otherwise deserted shopping mall, and heading north for 5k then returning south through small villages, past Le Morne, the considerable rocky outcrop that overlooked my hotel, then along the stunning south coast past Baie du Cap and Bel Ombre to St Felix beach. The first stretch to Le Morne was standard issue – clumps of posh houses, pockets of villages with odd restaurants and shops, patches of wasteland and lots of sugar palm plantations. The highlight was running along the colourful Avenue de Jacarandas and getting glimpses of the sea as the sun came up.

The southern stretch was truly fabulous, the road follows the beach with mountains on the left and the sea is postcard perfect there – clear, azure blue water completely still up to the shoreline and waves slamming onto the reef break further out. By the time we’d got down there, more locals were out and about and, while they clearly had no idea what was going on, they were very friendly and smiley. It was mildly uncomfortable running past a funeral in the final kilometre, especially as it was open casket and I got a glimpse of the poor chap’s Sunday best suit, I felt quite disrespectful, but they were largely very encouraging. The good thing about this event is there was a ½ marathon and a relay going on at the same time which attracted a far greater proportion of Mauritian runners than international ones. It didn’t feel like a tourist jamboree, rather a Mauritian race that we were welcomed into.

Looking back at the race route at about 30k with Le Morne in the background

My race wasn’t so good today. I’d certainly tapered, having run very little this week, and was well rested. I probably hadn’t eaten enough, the food at my hotel was excellent in the big white plate and towers of food and smears of jus fashion, but I’d skipped lunch each day (pina coladas count surely?) and hadn’t really had that much more than usual on Saturday. I’m not sure that was the problem though, it was probably more an electrolyte issue. It wasn’t so hot during the race, no more than 25 degrees and fairly cloudy but very humid. For a fairly non-sweaty girl, I was sweating like a stuck pig today. There was pepsi at the water stations and I’d had two gels but I may have been a bit low on salts. Whatever it was, by 30km the wheels were coming off and by 2km later, they’d fallen off entirely.

Up to that point I’d been feeling good. It’s not an easy course with a lot of undulations, and a couple of significant hills, one long drag from c.11k and a shorter but steep little bastard at Le Morne. Still, I was running comfortably and at a decent pace and went through half way in 1’52. With only 10k to go though my legs gave up and felt like solid lead weights, there was no running in them whatsoever. At the 35k checkpoint, 7k seemed like such a long way left and it was pretty dispiriting really. I dropped quite a bit of time and was lucky to come in as second lady in a (for me) woeful time of 4’04. That was enough to bag me a podium finish but I ought to have been a good 20 minutes quicker. I’m not sure what’s going wrong at the moment. Yeah yeah, I’ve still got the 10 in 10 in my legs. But why am I so bleeding unfit?

There wasn’t much ceremony over the finish line, though the presentation was good and the police brass band most entertaining (how often do the police have a brass band, let alone one that does covers ranging from Louis Armstrong to Celine Dion?). The medal was tiny and far from memorable, though offset by a larger version for coming second lady and a rather nice prize of a 3 night stay in a Naiade hotel and free entry to the race next year. I'm now 3/4 of the way to the 100 and it was another lovely place to mark it (50 at Marrakech, 75 at Mauritius and 100 at Malta). What was by far the best bit was taking off my runners and getting straight into the sea. Not quite an ice bath but supremely refreshing.