I have been meaning to write up a report about the Dublin Marathon I ran on October 29th. It has been a work in progress and I hope it is now ready for posting.
Dublin would be my third marathon of the year. I was absolutely wrecked mentally for my 1st in Belfast end of April and I wrote a report on that one here. I ran my second one in August, everything was going perfectly until the head gremlins set in just past the halfway stage and I just fell apart and mostly walked the second half. I tried to run plenty of times but my head just wasn’t there.
I was determined not to mess up on Dublin as it was THE big one and my only goal for it was to run as much as I could and be proud at the end of it.
I followed a thread on a forum over here where called Boards.ie. They have a great thread for Dublin graduates were they choose a person who trained using the forum the previous year, and would become a mentor for this years graduates. It’s a really great idea. It starts around April and guides all newbies through the training progress using a training plan they have been using for a few years now. I asked to join in after Longford and found it to be a huge benefit with all the help and advice we all received from the mentors and from everyone else that had ran marathons in the past.
I knuckled down did the miles and mostly stuck to the plan. The hardest part of the training was to run nearly all of the runs as slow as possible. I thought I was already good at running slow but I was still way too fast and had to slow down even more, which took a few weeks to get there. It seems like a kind of cliché to say that it was hard to run slow but it really was. I did find it very rewarding after some of my long runs and really started to find the benefits I got from them. I’d previously did the long runs but was forced to walk a few times to get my breath and heartrate back down. I still have a bit of work to do on that type of running but I can now reduce my heart rate by about 15 – 20 beats a minute slower than what it was when I started the training.
My speed is also getting near to the same as it was before but that is going to take more time and patience. Because sometimes it is just too easy to say the hell with this and just give up and go for it. I only really messed up once during my training. I had entered into a 3/4 marathon a month before Dublin (which I had already booked) and I asked for advice on how run and was told to run it as slow as possible. I did that for the first half but there was one other runner there who started jeffing from 2k onwards. He always stopped running and started walking and then started to run again when I was right next to him and would then run off into the distance only to do it again a few k later. I got a bit aggravated and carried on. There was also another man in the small group I was running in who must have been a local star. Every one was cheering him and beeping their car horns at him. Someone came running up to him at some stage and said he was running too fast I think (I’m not 100% sure though) and all of a sudden he started to slow down and there was then just 2 or 3 of us until I caught up with the Jeffer at about the 3/4 stage and I couldn’t hold my patience anymore and went with him and passed him when he started to speed up again. I very stupidly got faster when I felt him speeding up and gave it more until I really wore him out and carried on for a few hundred more meters to make sure he wouldn’t get passed me again. I did run the remainder of the race but I was absolutely knackered. I was also passed by the famous guy who not only shot passed me but was running much faster than he previously was. I remember posting on Strava that I would be killed for my foolishness (and rightly so) but boy did they give it to me… However, I wouldn’t have done it if was a week or so closer to Dublin. But I also wanted to give myself some sort of retribution for my shammy display at Longford and wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
Now for the race weekend itself. I always try to look at accommodation long before a race so that I can book it at a good price rather than the horrendous prices most of the others are paying when they leave it too late. We decided to make a nice weekend of it and stay for 3 nights at a nice golf hotel in Swords near Dublin itself. I had to be in Dublin the day before the race to pick my number up a stupid Expo at the RDS in Dublin, which is really just a marketing stunt. It’s not so bad for people living in Dublin but it’s a pain for everyone else to be honest. Anyway, my wife got a base dose of the flue the week just before and wasn’t in any state to travel. We were also isolating from each other in case it was Covid and also to stop me from catching it. So we decided that I should go on my own and I left for Dublin the next day.
I think I left Sligo at about 8am on Saturday for the RDS which was more or less straight down the N4 /M4 into Dublin. Well that was all going swimmily until I got confused with Google maps at the very last millisecond and mistook the M50 turn off for the N4 one. NNNNoooooo!!! I thought to myself as I inadvertently drove onto the carpark aka the M50 towards the airport. Google very kindly rerouted me and gave new directions. I can’t remember the route, all I can say is that it was just a constant line of stop start traffic. Also, to top it off, I was getting quite desperate for a pee. This wouldn’t be so bad in the countryside where I could just pull the car over and get it over and done with. But being stuck in a traffic jam in Dublin was a different story altogether. I began to panic like crazy trying to find a side street off the road I was on or hoped I would see a pub or something but nothing was around. I began to make all sorts of funny shapes in the car to hold it off and thought someone would think I was going mad or something. I eventually saw a side road that wasn’t a dead end and found some pay and display spaces. I quickly got out of the car and rushed over to the machine. Unfortunately I got there the same time as someone else and I stupidly said he could go first but HE WAS THERE FOREVER!! Anyway he eventually left and it was my turn. I was paying by card and wasn’t really concentrating on time or money. I pressed the + button twice and paid with my card only to see that I only had 10 minutes. I ran over to the car threw the ticket in closed the door and hastily walked to find a shop or something. All I could see were tiny coffee shops with only a few chairs inside and no toilets. I did eventually find a small hotel, so I rushed in there and found the toilets just in time. I then had the mad panic of trying to remember where I parked the car before it got clamped. I eventually found the car in time and set off to the RDS and parked in Clyde Street.
The RDS was full of buzz, I had a quick look around and went to get my pack. The lady scanned the code on my phone and asked for photo ID. Problem was that my names didn’t match up. My parents named me Michael Anthony, they call me Anthone because my father is Michael and I go by the name of Tony… I was asked if I was collecting for someone and I had to explain it all to the lady. Why do parents do things like this? Anyway, I eventually get my number and pack take another look around and buy a pair a beany hat and a pair of shorts because they have gel pockets and a decent zip pocket at the back.
I then found my way to the hotel I was staying in near Swords, got some food, did my final run, went to the pool did 10 easy length of the pool, went to the steam room, went back to the room, watched the Rugby match (meh), turned the tv off and tried to sleep.
I left the hotel at about 5 the next morning to make sure I could find a space somewhere near the start. I then had a bit of a rest before I got ready. I couldn’t make my mind up if I was going to use the bag drop off or not. I decided not to and got myself ready making sure I had everything I needed and set off. It then started to rain and I thought I didn’t want to be standing around in wet clothes at the end so went back to the car put on my tracksuit bottoms and a top, packed my bag with dry clothes and set off again. Then thought I left my bank card on the dashboard so had to go back again.
That’s when another graduate from the Forum who goes by the name of “Legits” saw me and asked if I was from Boards. We got chatting and decided to run together as we were both aiming for about the 4hr 30 mark. We dropped off our bags and went to the loos. I remember seeing one of the pacers in the queue and was wondering how he would manage to get in with his balloon. He simply let it float on the string outside whilst he was inside. A lot of people found it funny and were taking selfies standing outside the loo with the balloon outside.
I think the plan was to start in front of the 4:30 pacers but there was just too many people around so we started a few meters back from them. We weren’t really too fussed and we had plenty of time during the run to get passed. We both had similar strategies where we were going to hang around the pacers until 30k and then go a bit faster if we able. We had both also planned to take our gels every 30 minutes and walk at the drink stations to take our drinks instead of soaking and sipping.
We stopped at the first or second water station, got out bottle of water and quickly used the loo and set off running again. I then had a quick drink from my bottle and started to laugh. I thought I left my bottle of water down when I was in the loo and picked it up when I left. But I actually put my bottle under my armpit, forgot it was there and mistook the other bottle for my one and started to drink from that instead.
The crowds were great and were calling out our names. I could only hear mine and told legits that I was famous. I also thought that I saw another Boards’ie graduate called witnessmenow running in front of us as he had a blue singlet, baseball hat and tight shorts on him. We eventually caught up and both ran either side of him had a look at his face and pulled behind again where I said I didn’t think it was him. I then got out my phone to see if I could find the picture witnessmenow posted of his race gear. But I was wrongly looking on the forum and not on Strava. I then said the name a couple of times to see if I got a reaction. I knew it wasn’t him when I saw the face (as I’d seen him when we were running in Kilkee and the fella in front was a tad older looking) but was just messing to pass the time. The only result in all that was that we had started to run too fast and had to slow down.
Everything more or less went to plan, we had a few chats and got to the halfway point in what seemed like no time at all. It then started to get a bit quiet. I was thinking about what happened to me in Longford and compared it to how I was feeling during this run. I had a little niggle at the top of my left thigh but generally felt great. I was very pleased with the way my training had gone and had been going to bed before 10 for 3 weeks (even if I didn’t sleep all of the time). I asked legits how he was feeling and he said that an old injury was starting to show and I could go off ahead if I wanted to. I said it was ok to see if it got any better. He then started to slow down quite a bit at the 25k mark and suggested that I should go on ahead again as there was no way he would be able to achieve 4hrs 30. We then wished each other good luck and I set off like a dog being let off a lead.
I felt fresh and picked up my speed a bit and went off in pursuit of the pacers, which were nowhere to be seen (I’d say that they were so far in front that we were probably in danger of being passed by next lot of pacers). I was passing the other runners as if we were in two different races. I was aware of this and I saw that my watch had crept up to Zone 4 (orange), so I slowed down a bit until it got back down to zone 3.
I eventually caught up to the pacers at 31k, they were all singing and jaunting and keeping their runners in high spirits. My head wasn’t ready for the banter so I continued running passed them before I slowed down.
I then got to a bit of a hill and thought that was Heartbreak hill until I saw the other hill. I took on both hills and was feeling it by the time I got to the top of the second hill. There was a DJ at the top of that hill, he said “Look who’s here, lets give a big hello to the 4hr 30 pacers” I though Nooo it can’t beee!!! and picked up speed again. I was definitely feeling it by then but was able to pick up a bit of speed as I was then going downhill.
I felt absolutely wrecked physically but very good mentally. I also thought I was running too slow and my heart rate was too high but my watch was showing I was in the high 6 mins and in the green zone. I tried to slow down but It’s kind of had to tell your body to slow when you think you cant go any slower. I continued on like that for a few more kms still passing other runners.
One of the pacers caught up to me again and I heard him telling someone that there was only a quarter of a mile to go after that bridge. I couldn’t see a bridge but thought not far now. We then got to the big screen and I heard the PA say smile your near then end. I did exactly that and had a fixed grin on my stupid face until the very end, because I frigging did it. Yeah it was the 3rd one of the year for me. I was a Zombie due to a very bad period of insomnia for Belfast and fell apart at the halfway point in Longford. But I knew that I had conquered it with the DCM and felt proud as punch.
I finished in 4hrs 27. I also managed negative splits of 2:16 in first half and 2:12 in second – thanks to my 10k pace between 25k and 32k.
I did go to the pub and walked around 3 times but it was just mad in there.
Anyways, that’s my story. It’s a race I will look back on and be proud of.
I just want to end this by saying that my wife got talking to one of her uncles recently and was talking to him about my running because he used to be a runner. She told him that I was doing Dublin. He said that he did ten of them and started when he was 55 and stopped when he thought he was getting too old (he is now in his 80s). I have just done my first Dublin Marathon at 55 and have just signed up for next year, so who knows….
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