Instead of the “Full Irish” breakfast I had only some cereals, a few slices of toast and a cup of tea. Our b&b was about 500m from the start area, so we (my wife accompanied me) walked towards the city at about 8am. The temperature was low, about 8 Celsius and by 9am, after having spent an hour standing on the streets of Dublin, I was shivering a bit.The gun went off at 9:15, on the first mile I had no chance to run my own pace, the rather narrow streets were so crowded with runners that I had to go with the crowd. I didn’t see a mile marker until mile 3, where I checked my watch: I was rather fast, especially if I took the slow first mile into account. From that point I would watch my pace carefully.
By the time we had crossed the Liffey and ran north towards Phibsborough a fellow runner asked me about my t-shirt. I was wearing a finisher shirt from my Munich Marathon 2004. He told me that he also ran this race as his 2nd marathon. One year earlier his weight had been 110 kg, and he had lost about 30 kg since. Then he wished me luck and ran away.
I didn’t really have a plan for my marathon. My PR was 3:39:36, run in Hamburg in April this year. My dream is to run a sub 3:30. And I knew from my recently run half marathons I was in good shape, though I didn’t get in as many long runs as I wanted, due to illness (and poor planning).
When I had reached Phoenix Park (4 miles), I saw that I was running 7:50 per mile. I ran this pace constantly through the next 5 miles, it didn’t feel too fast. From mile 11 to 13 the course is a steady ascent and I slowed down a bit, but my HM time was 1:45. My by far fastest half of a full marathon ever. If I could roughly hold that pace, I would set a PR, if I could repeat the time of the first half, I could reach my dream time of 3:30.
But then came the hills.
I hadn’t expected Dublin was so hilly. Not that there were very steep and high hills, but the course went up and down all the time. Around mile 20 there was, after a long smooth ascent, a ramp of about 100 m length which seemed to be almost vertical. O.k., I may have had this impression only because I had ran 20 miles at that time, but it was really brutal.
So I slowed down considerably. Some miles were well over 9 minutes, but I still managed to run the flat parts of the course at a 8:30 pace.
That was my first race that was measured in miles (instead of kilometers). I noticed that this, in a marathon, makes really a difference. The critical phase in a marathon begins around mile 20 (or km 32). In km-measured marathons you have to run the 8 km until km 40, and then you have still 2 km to go. In Dublin I was better off: there were only 6 miles left. That sounds ridiculous, but it is really a psychological advantage. And the last part of a marathon is all about psychology.
Speaking of psychology, what really helped were the people along the streets. The Irish are generally helpful and friendly and there were thousands of people who cheered for the runners. Should anyone who was there read this, thank you so much for your support!So I made my way into the city center. One mile to go, my body surprised me one more time: for the first time of my running “carreer” I had a leg cramp. I had to stop and stretch. As I resumed running, I saw that just 30 meters behind the place I stopped stood my wife, with a worried face ;-). She cheered me up, and so I made it to the finish.
Having to deal with the tricks of my body I hadn’t cared about times and pace during the last miles, so I was very pleased to notice I had set a new PR: 3:38:31, more than a minute faster as in Hamburg. So we had a good reason to celebrate the run with a pint of Guinness (or two) in the evening!
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