21st Danube Half Marathon – Apatin

21st Danube Half Marathon, Apatin 23. 10. 2016

One of the favorite races for people from Vojvodina and Subotica besides Sombor half-marathon certainly is Apatin Danube half marathon. And this year was held for the twenty-first time, October 23rd, 2016 on Sunday, starting and ending at the nearby spa Junaković. Friendly hosts led by Goran Čegar, many familiar faces from marathon milieu made up the overall atmosphere very positive before the race.

ARK Tron team crew started its journey in rented mini-bus in the morning, from the city of Subotica, and at around 9 am we were at the starting place. Cloudy weather and fog did not spoil the good mood. I was very tired from the day before when I traveled through Novi Sad to Kikinda and back to a seminar on the history, namely museology. I arrived with the night train to Subotica and around 3 AM went to sleep. To make things even more complicated the previous day took me a cold, mild inflammation of the throat and nose. Bayer aspirin, vitamins and tea with three hours sleep and I was somewhat recovered. I told myself I’ll run, but as far as I can. By the start of the race, which was scheduled for 11 am, but after delayed for about 15 minutes, time is slowly passing by. There was a dilemma for many of us about what to wear and when to start warming, since it was chilly outside.

The race began, started up about 400 half-marathon runners. I pushed through after a few hundred meters, and has imposed myself a pace of about 4:08 per km and even faster. I joined Miroslav Savić and a smaller group. The first few kilometers I am very well standing this pace, a little cooler weather went down realy well, despite the fact that I ran in long sleeves shirt. On the turn, at about half of the race, I was at about 44 minutes and a few seconds. At that point a little fatigue began to bother me. After 13 km, Savić Miroslav my friend from Kovilj passed me by, as well as Tijana Kabić from Sombor, and Savić told me to follow them. I kept them from afar for some 40-50 meters, but I counl not managed to approach them. Back on the quay again through Apatin, then to spa Junaković direction. At about 18 km crisis occurs again, to keep the pace somewhat close to 4:15, teammate Đerđ Teleki overtakes me, but I’m going for it, I’m not so far away, I follow his pace. I see that time is 1:25 and couple of seconds on traffic sign for 20 km. I’m thinking that I will finally have half marathon under 1:30, if I hold on just a little longer. We turn to the spa, I do not look back and not looking at the clock, the legs are a bit sluggish. Last curves and a semicircle of about 200 meters is in front of me. I speed up as much as I can, I see in front of me clock and figures showing 1:29 and seconds that are passing by, and somewhere around 45 seconds I cross the finish line. Barely breathing, greetings with Đerđ, and some are congratulating me, I rejoice, because of good race and sudden overthrow of my personal record for about 70 seconds despite to fatigue and problems with health. Gently I stretched, drank some beer and rushed to the dressing because it was cold.

Of our people from Subotica an excellent result made Edvard Halas who went around 1:19:30 and got into the top ten. Then followed the lunch, pasta stew, and then the members of our club went for a drink at a restaurant near the Danube in Apatin. Return back of our small expedition to Subotica was in the evening, that is, sometime after 18h.