Dublin Done.

[Seafront Plodder]

I could say that you don't know what you missed Andy, but I think perhaps you do. Here's my experience..........

“By a lonely prison wall
I heard a sweet voice calling,
'Oh Danny, they have taken you away.
For you stole Travelian's corn,
that your babes might see the dawn,
now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.'

Fair lie the fields of Athenry
where we stood to watch the small freebirds fly…………”

Picture the scene. It is 10:30pm and I am one of around 150 people pretending to know the words. I find myself in Dublin’s Temple Bar area along with Dan from Madison, Wisconsin. Rachel, the lovely local red-head who really does know the words to ‘The Fields of Athenry’, and numerous pints of The Black Stuff! The local folk combo is going down a storm, no one wants the evening to end and there’s no room to move! ………..and they call this The Friendly Marathon?

Post race re-hydration is important, but what a last couple of days! I would recommend Dublin to anyone. My training/drinking partner came down with flu just 2 days before we were due to go. I travelled on my own, but if there is anywhere where this matters less I would like to know. Wearing my finishers tee shirt as some kind of uniform meant I had something in common with some 8,000 other people by Monday evening, many hundreds were out, plenty were in that pub, most it seemed, in uniform.

The marathon takes a circular route of the city and finishes where it starts. It was a bright, yet chilly morning and I was glad to have the turkey-foil blanket to use at the start that I had forgotten to use after London. Handing my bag in just after the finish line meant a short walk to the start, where I joined the throng about half way back, the area where you should start if your predicted time is around 5 hours, I couldn’t see the start line!

At 8:50 a klaxon sent the wheelchair athletes on their way, so we had a further nervous 10-minute wait which seemed to be over in 2. Again I forgot to check the clock when I actually crossed the start line, but a fellow runner with more foresight than I advised me we were already 4 minutes into the race. Contrary to what we were told there were no microchips this year – too expensive apparently. Our numbers had a bar code on a tear-off section at the bottom. No one seemed to know however how this was supposed to record an accurate time.

I cannot really remember the early miles that well. We spread out quite quickly so there was more than enough road for us all and I eased into a steady rhythm, covering the first 3 miles in a shade under 30 minutes, bang on my normal pace. The route takes you north out of the city centre, and although it is a long steady incline it’s fairly easy on the legs. The ‘climb’ took us into Phoenix Park. Here the crowds were virtually non-existent, but that really didn’t matter as it was early days – and downhill all the way out!

Water stations were slick. The only gripe I could have is that the power gel station was around a mile before the next water point! Still, they had all flavours. I grabbed two and immediately threw one away when I saw it was strawberry, settling instead for apple and lemon on the basis that I had a better chance of keeping it down. I have never got on with these gel sachets, but as there were only two lucozade sport stations on the whole route I thought I had better show willing. Like medicine taken as a child, they must work on the basis that the worse they taste the better they are for you.

It didn’t seem to me as if I was making good progress, but 10 miles came and went, as did half way without any real problems. The organisers had had the foresight to throw in a few steep hills to ensure we didn’t get over confident, and despite all my hill training I was forced to walk up a few. My right hip started to ache a bit around this time, which is something it has never done before, but thankfully I managed to run it off, and after that had no real problems, apart from the thought that I might have over-tightened my shoelaces!

Mile 18 (again) is where it all started to fall apart. I knew I was better prepared this time around by the number and length of my long training runs, but still I was forced into increasingly regular walk breaks. I made the mistake of assuming (as in London), that Lucozade sport stations were separate from the water! No so here, so I managed to miss the first one. 18 miles and all I’d had was water and one disgusting gel pack. Around this point was the other lucozade table, and I grabbed a full ½ litre bottle and downed the contents in one. Whether it is amazing stuff or a placebo matters not, it did the trick as I was off and running again.

The Irish didn’t appear to care much about accurate distance markers, preferring instead to stick them on the nearest lamppost. The mile 20 marker however was significant for me, as there was also a clock; it showed a time of 3:50. Wey hey! 6 miles to go, the usual 10-minute miles, allow a little margin for error, and I will have broken 5 hours! – or so I thought.

Americans! Love ‘em or loathe ‘em they made this race. Hundreds of runners had made the journey over, as many again had come to support. Awesome is an overused word in the american vocabulary, but it applies to them all. Boy can they give support! “Way ta Go!!” clapping, shouting and waving. The closer we got to the finish, the louder they seemed to be.

I ran all of the last 6 miles and it hurt towards the end, it hurt badly. A time when the mind is strong but the body is starting to shut down. It's a struggle to put one foot in front of the other; got to keep going; think of that 5 hour barrier; one yard run is one yard closer to the finish...Christ the pain!!!!!....gotta keep moving.....think of all those miles run in training, they are all stored in the legs for this moment; no Guinness if you walk now! All these thoughts went through my mind.

I pushed like never before, refusing to give in and walk. The mile 25 marker came and went and I knew I could keep going. Half a mile or so to go and turning to look to the left I could see the finishing line, but still I had a loop of St Stephens college to go. I could hear the guy on the tannoy at the finishing line shouting at every runner to keep it up right to the line, soon he would be shouting at me!

385 yards to go, and I kick! I actually kick for home. Hardly a sprint but a definite turn of speed, overtaking a fair few fellow runners. Around the final corner and the line is there, I quickly glance around and there’s no one behind. Tannoy man is now shouting for me, my number! I give it all right up to the line, I cross the line, lean against the barriers, and cry.

My clock time was 5:04.35, agonisingly close to the time I had set for myself at the 20 mile mark. Still, perhaps with bar code technology it may net down under 5. Not that I really mind, it was still a personal best by some 20 minutes. Medal on, goody bag collected and baggage reclaimed, I sit on some steps and get changed, surprised that I was getting so cold so quickly. I had now been in Dublin for 24 hours, and not had a Guinness ! Had to put that right. Heading for a pub, I only had 2 before the room started moving, so I get a taxi back to my B & B, shower, and sleep for 3 hours.

6pm and my alarm woke me up. Donning my finisher’s tee shirt, I headed out for an evening of re-hydration in Temple Bar.

“On the windswept harbour wall,
She watched the last star rising
As the prison ship sailed out across the sky
But she'll watch and hope and pray,
For her love in Botany Bay
Whilst she is lonely in the fields of Athenry.
Whilst she is lonely in the fields of Athenry.”

Dublin. THE friendly marathon? Roll on next year!

Andy.