As mentioned before I managed to finish the Dublin marathon last Monday. It was a gruelling experience. I wasn’t able to run at all in the three/ four weeks leading up to the race due to an injury sustained in the half marathon. 8 physio sessions later and with a wallet a lot lighter race day came upon me.

I carbed up the days before the race and got plenty of liquids on board too and felt quite good apart from the knowledge that my knee was still not 100%. My physio said that I should take 4 Ibuprofen before the race to help with the knee but I have a nervous tummy and didn’t want to risk ibuprofen, instead I took two solpadine and was going to take another two just before the race….. that stuff is vile!!!!! so I only managed the first two.

My mum drove me in on race morning and waited around with me while I stretched and warmed up (my warm up run felt great so I was gunning for a good race).

I bullied my way to about 8 rows from the front of the runners as there is nothing worse than trying to get by people on race start (as I found in the 10 mile race earlier in the year). I was crazy nervous but some Al Pacino “Inches” calmed me down just before the starting gun went. I tore off with the runners so I wouldn’t get trampled and soon settled into my desired pace which was between 6.30 and 6.50 minutes per mile. I felt great and was really flying with a 41:54 10km split.

However soon after 10 miles my knee (specifically the soleus muscle) started to flare up big time.

You can see from the graph (my Garmin forerunner 405 worked a treat) where it all went wrong. People talk of the “wall” so I thought maybe the pain was the “wall” and not my knee, I tried battling through but no such luck. My legs felt good so I was mega pissed off but figured if I stopped and stretched every now and again I would be OK and still get an acceptable time.

I battled on stopping every km to stretch and walk. I stopped for an aided stretch with my mates at 12 miles (cheers Paddy) and also with a physio about 13. My dad was at 21 miles so I stopped and took on some glucose with him, The sugars didn’t last long as I had to sit/ lie down on the kerb at 23. My sugar levels were very low and I felt very faint. A very VERY hot FM104 lady gave me three small bags of Haribo which I wolfed down and shuffled off again. She was really hot!!

The last few miles were pure agony with every muscle cramping up. I saw Brian and Carol at the approach to the finish which gave me a boost but then I saw my Mum’s Norwegian flag waving furiously which gave me a huge burst of energy and sprinted to the finish line crossing in 4 hours and 7 minutes and 52 seconds. Nearly an hour later than expected (my eventual goal is 3.15 to 3.30) but I was just sooooo happy to finish it.

To redeem myself I have signed up for a 10km before Christmas, a half marathon in March and I might have secured myself a place in the late April London marathon (I’ll be hitting you all up for sponsorship for that one).

The crowd were amazing and thanks to my friends and family that came out to support me… It really did help. Thanks to all the strangers that shouted my name (painted on my shirt) and to those who handed out sweets and drinks. It was a great day despite experiencing worlds of pain I had never even dreamt of.

Thanks to all and well done to all finishers!!!!!

Speed statistics for the race. The sharp increase around 1.5 miles has to be a GPS glitch as I definitely did not run at 4.21 pace at any stage.

Race statistics, I would have thought I’d used more than 2880 calories, it certainly felt like it.

My official results

I also have the kml (Dublin_marathon_27th_October_2008.kml) and kmz (Dublin_marathon_27th_October_2008.kmz) files exported from google earth as well as my race on google maps.

What would I do differently:

• Don’t get injured and make sure you get enough long run training in.
• Running 15 miles once is NOT enough!!!!
• 26.2 miles is a loooong distance, don’t underestimate it
• From the graphs you can see that I desperately need to learn to keep a constant pace, that’s on my agenda now once I can start running again.

Bring on London 2009!!!!!