The Adidas Dublin Marathon
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| From website photos |
My second attempt at the marathon. I signed up for this race shortly after my first marathon. I was so commitment I booked the plane tickets and the race 8 months in advance. Plus a trip to Ireland. I have never left the country so I was stoked.
I learned from my mistakes with the first marathon and decided to plan better and train harder. I traveled with two friends again we planned a 8 day trip over there staying in hostels. One day would be committed to traveling there and one day traveling back, 10 days in all. Oh and little did we know it would end up being a day and a half because of snow. We got to the airport and our flight was cancelled. We decided instead of going back home that we would re-route and fly into London then up to Ireland. We got to Chicago and yet another flight delay-ahh so we re booked our flight while waiting on the tarmac hoping that plane did not leave before we got to the gate. Luckily we were the last three people allowed on the plane and off we were. But the drama wasn’t over, my friends and I had some in-flight excitement. A passenger decided she wanted to have medical issues in flight, and us all being nurse we had to come to the rescue, as much as the European flight attendant would let us. So finally we make it to our hostel in Ireland. Let me say Dublin is amazing, we experienced everything we could, food, pubs, castles, got lost , met great people and had a blast. I was the only one running the marathon the others we just enjoying there time. I was going to have the opportunity to see Dublin in a way that they would never know. I was so excited to run through the narrow streets and past all of the friendly people of the city.
Race day was on Bank holiday, October 30, 2006. It was actually a pretty late starting marathon compared to what I was use to seeing but fine by me besides, my hostel was a block away from the starting line. I did good by not walking all over the city the day before but we did go to the pub the night before so I was up later than I would have liked and I had a few more pints than I would have liked as well. Not good.
So I headed to the start it turns out there were several people in the hostel that I was staying in that were running as well. A group from Germany brought a cheering squad too. The start was on a very narrow street near Trinity college. I was probably 10 minutes back from the actual line, which was fine I walked until I hit the colorful arch of balloons indicating it was time to get moving. The route was to run through Dublin, down the streets like vikings, past many landmarks and people. It was titled the “friendly marathon”. Which it was, there were so many people cheering and watching. The city was practically shut down. People were hanging out the windows of their flats, kids were handing out “sugary sweets”.
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| From website photos |
I had to race smarter than I did with my first marathon. I took several walk breaks during the first so I thought if I ran this whole race without stopping I should be able to improve my time some. I wasn’t expecting miracles but I was hoping.
It was overcast windy sometimes it was “pissing rain” so I was between short and long sleeve frequently. The wind had not one direction but several and the rain followed. I would soon learn this was normal Irish weather. I was running strong, but the streets were taking its toll. Brick or cobble stone made it very easy to roll ankles which I did several times. Also it was not to flat either, I would call it gradual hills. the first 5 miles were a gradual climb then a slight down hill then another long climb up spanning 5 miles, then one more hill near mile 20. We ran through Phoenix park, Stephens Green, Guinness brewery , near the canal and then to finish by Merrion square. It was one very large loop. I felt lost the entire time. I had not seen any of these parts of the city. I had no clue where I was heading. You can look at a map but unless you drive the course, which I did not have a car, there was no way of knowing what to expect ahead.
I remember running with a young french couple eager to finish but did not care about time. We all sort of pushed each other. Occasionally I was a few meters ahead of them and some times they were ahead of me, it was nice company. We ended up finishing together, with a large cheering section, from my hostel, and a toast of champagne at the end. We pushed toward the finish line and through the very long chute to the line. I clocked in with a finishing time of 4:28:39 chip time. In 4599 place over all , and 436 for my category I had done it, I ran the entire race and set a new PR by over 5 minutes. I felt great I knew then I was hooked. I desired breaking 4 hours from that point.
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| From website photos |
Now many people ask my what it was like running in another country and I haven’t really thought about it but there were some differences. First was the water was a served in bottles, small bottles with the caps on, so you could take one and continue to run with it, but crunching over them was also challenging. Also being in Europe you had so many different nationalities, so many different language. I remember the announcer was speaking English but his Irish baroque was so strong I had no clue what he was saying. The expo hosted people I was not familiar with. the products were different as far as power gels and re-fuelers, but they did have Gatorade. They had ambulance stations set up instead of just medic tents. And I am not sure if it was just because it was Ireland or what but it seemed the coverage of the race was a big deal. It was all over the news papers and on the t.v. and when I finished my vacation I would go places and the locals would ask why we were on holiday there and I would explain the marathon and they were impressed but then talk about who won the race, the man who died, and the man that had a heart transplant and finished it. it also could have been the later of the two that it was all over the news. I also noticed there were so many different people running for so many different charities. In the states and at the Nike Women’s Marathon was just Team in Training.
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| From website photos |
So two marathons under my belt, and many more to come. I did take a camera with my while I was running, of course the pictures are a little shaky but you can see the weather, all the people, and some pretty cool Irish land marks.
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| From website photos |
http://dublinmarathon.ie/index.php