You wouldn’t expect the capital of Latvia – one of the Baltic countries – to be basking in temperatures of 26 degrees in May, but those were the conditions facing Manx distance runner Christa Cain in Riga last Sunday.
Christa has produced some amazing performances over the past year or two, and although her time of 1:18:52 for the Riga Half Marathon was a couple of minutes outside her personal best it was still a fantastic run in such tough conditions.
She finished in a superb seventh place out of over 1500 in the women’s race, with the first four places filled by elite Kenyan and Ethiopian runners.
It was great to see on the results list the nationalities of the leading seven as KEN, ETH, KEN, KEN, LTU, ITA, IMN!
Christa was third in the women’s 35 age group.
Christa in Riga
The heat wasn’t the only problem Christa had to contend with either.
Describing the race and the lead-up to it, she told Dave: “It was exceptionally hot right from the off, coupled with a bad journey to get there.
“Having been cancelled by British Airways direct to Gatwick, we got re-routed through Prague, then missed the connection to Riga so had to go on to Helsinki. After three hours sleep it was then onwards to Riga the next morning. It probably wasn’t the best preparation!”
After a series of fantastic performances, Christa now plans to take a break from long-distance races before planning her next racing adventures.
6 Comments