“I could see the year in drinking one too many Jaeger bombs and dancing badly or running a NYE Night Marathon in Zurich… I’ll go for the latter”. Herne Hill Harriers’ Sean Fitzpatrick travelled to Zurich on New Year’s Eve with club mate Simon Messenger to race in the Neujahrsmarathon event that started on the stroke of midnight at the beginning of 2016.
Sean got his new year off to a cracking start with a fine 3rd place in a time of 2 hours 51 minutes 36 seconds. His time was several minutes outside his personal best, but this was an excellent return for what was essentially planned as a long training run in a race that was run in cold weather conditions in the middle of the night on a course that incorporated a considerable amount of off road trail running.
The added bonus for Sean, aside from whatever prizes were presented, is that by getting in early he has his name at the top of the UK men’s marathon rankings for 2016 after the first five days of this year! Although this prominent position will inevitably be short lived, we have very reasonable expectations of a strong improvement for Sean this year at all distances from 3000m upwards to the marathon.
Sean, who won the Emer Casey London 10k race in Brockwell Park last November showed no adverse after effects as he was soon back in action in the same park on his return to London, as he then placed 4th in the parkrun just a day later on Saturday 2nd January. Unfortunately his training mate Simon fared less well in Zurich as he suffered some stomach issues, but nevertheless completed a half marathon after running with Sean in the early stages of the same overnight event.