I wasn’t planning on running the marathon this year, I had other plans for a spring marathon in 2020 to mark me reaching the milestone of the big 40 in March, but I got caught up in all the hype and the excitement of the Sunday long run group in their early training days and I needed in on the action. I thought I’d try for one of the late tickets released in July and leave it down to fate, if I got one I'd run, if I didn’t then so be it, I'd stick to my 2020 plan. The luck of the Irish was on my side and I was one of the lucky 2500 to get one.
I had run Dublin way back in 2006 as a tourist visiting the city, it was my 5th marathon to run in my mid-twenties and it was my last. I may as well have been running anywhere in the world as I didn’t know the city or the route. I ran the course in around 3hrs 40mins. Fast forward 13 years, and I have been living in this wonderful city for 10 of those years, threatening to join a running club since I made the move but never doing so. I always kept active in one way or another but never fully felt satisfied. Then I heard of Dave Bradshaw Running through one of the mums at school, I joined him in December 2018, and I have never looked back. DBR isn’t just a running club, it’s a running family and I feel so lucky to have found them.
Training:
Training went from 3/4 days per week to 5 days after signing up for DCM, Dave started sending me a weekly schedule. I loved the weekly schedule and eagerly awaited it each Sunday, wondering “what did he have in store for us this week”. I loved every minute of it and I was 100% committed and consistent from the very beginning, something which stood well for me.
Training during the summer with 3 children off school was difficult and often meant early rises to get out and back before Steve left for work, this in turn meant earlier bedtimes too. As the weeks rolled by and the mileage got higher and the tempos got longer and harder, I found that the early to bed routine was one of the most productive things I could do for myself, rest and recovery to let the body recharge. Weekly training schedules generally consisted of 3 easy runs ( some with strides), The famous Thursday morning tempo that eventually grew to 12 miles and the Sunday long run. We trained for 23 weeks for DCM and by the time it came to tapering off for the marathon, I was so ready for it, I embraced it, and used it as a time where I could discipline myself to stay at a certain pace, something that I am generally not very good at, excitement and adrenaline usually get the better of me in a race, but I knew, if I was to succeed at DCM then I would need to be focused and disciplined. I do believe that being physically ready and physically strong is only half of what you need to succeed in the marathon, you need to be mentally strong and mentally ready, and that is something that I worked hard on too, particularly in the later stages of training. Meditation is something that is part of my life even when Im not taking on the challenge of training for a marathon, so I really focused on this, combined with positive affirmations and visualisations. I read a wonderful booked called “running with the mind of meditation” by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He is an accomplished runner and meditation master and the book is basically the study/examination of the relationship between the mind and the body and the training of both together. Well worth a read.
Race Week
I felt very relaxed and focused the week of a race, I had spent a few days the previous week in a marathon haze, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries reading books, by the 3rd or 4th day of this I had become way too serious and almost felt like the fun was being sucked out of it, almost like this was a bad thing, I had to check in with myself, look at what I had achieved in all these weeks of training, the friendships I had made and the amazing and fun filled challenge I was about to take on. This was a good thing I was about to do. To even get to the starting line of a marathon is an achievement in itself. I decided to take Dave’s advice and try and forget that I was running a marathon that week, and while that was a very hard thing for me to do as it was always there in the background, I tried my best. I read a non-running book, caught up with friends and watched movies and generally sent myself to bed early. I ate well and hydrated well.
Race Day
I got up around 5.30am (Eileen was collecting me at 7am). I showered and went downstairs and did a meditation/visualisation. A few weeks previously I had read Niall’s DCM 2017 report and I set the plan of reading that on race day morning whilst having my coffee, I knew it would get me in the zone and it would familiarise me with the course again and it also gave great advice and tips (thank you Niall) One of the tips I took from it was eating a small bowl of pasta for breakfast. I don’t normally eat breakfast before a long run so this was quite risky, but I was up so early and had hours to go before kick-off and I knew I needed something, this was plain enough and I would have time to digest it.
730am: meet at the gym
8am: on our way to the wave 2 area and a quick warmup. I was feeling a little anxious that I wouldn’t have a balloon man to follow and I wanted to get up right up the front so as not to get caught up in the crowds. Dave’s words in my head “you don’t need a pacer, you have your Garmin, that’s your pacer”
8.30am I took a gel and a caffeine bullet
9.05am Here we go!
I had already decided in my head that I would break the race into 5-mile segments, and I would take a gel every 5 miles. Mile 1 went by in a blur, when my watch beeped, I couldn’t believe we had run a mile already, I was feeling great. It came as a surprise to me then that my legs started to feel a bit heavy around mile 3,( my slowest mile) I’m not sure why this happened so early on in the race, perhaps nerves, I didn’t panic and out the little voice in my head back in her box, I acknowledged the feelings and I let them pass, which they did, and I got myself back on track. By the time we had reached the Phoenix Park my legs were feeling good again although I didn’t really enjoy the park and was looking forward to the long drag of Chesterfield Avenue finishing, I took a gel at mile 5 and made a mental note to myself that I was never doing any more Phoenix Park races, ever again, I looked forward to coming into Castleknock, friends of mine would be there cheering me on. I wasn’t quite ready for the overwhelming support of the crowd at this point, I was blown away, and after Chesterfield Avenue it gave me a great boost and sent me on my way again. I was looking forward to miles 8-10 as I knew they were going to be faster miles and Dave had said I could stretch the legs and pick up the pace slightly. I took another gel at mile 10 and got myself ready for the first real test of a hill at mile 11 and I had it in my head that we would be hitting the familiar streets of our Sunday long runs soon and that was a comforting feeling. Until then I decided to join in on the fun and games and high fived all the children screaming with excitement with their hands out and hit the boards that people had made saying “hit here for more power”, I was going to need it as it wouldn’t be long till we were tackling the long pull of the Crumlin Road, and the half way mark soon enough. Mile 12 on the South Circular and a surprise shout out from two friends I wasn’t expecting to see, another great boost.
I was ready for the pull of the Crumlin Road because Dave had gotten us ready for the pull of the Crumlin road, and thank goodness he did as there were lots of people who weren’t ready for it. I passed lots who had perhaps gone out too fast and were now walking, I felt reassured at this stage that I was doing good. One last pull up to the Walkinstown roundabout and this hard slog would be over. By this point in the race I had found myself in a little group, two runners (male & female) from a club in Tipperary and a girl from Poland who was on her own. It felt good to be part of a group and gave me a good feeling of camaraderie.
Running down the Cromwellsfort road I took another gel looked forward to Mile 17 where there would be familiar faces, I spotted Dave and his family near the top of Fortfield Road, quick pose for the camera and a high five and I was off down Templeogue road where the most important fans of the day would be waiting for me at mile 18 , my husband, my 3 little girls and my Dad. I couldn’t miss them, outside Cripps with the Saltires flying high and the DCM clappy hands, making as much noise as possible. My best mile of the day by far, seeing those 3 little smiley faces shouting, “go mummy, go”, if only they knew the enormity of the task that their mummy was undertaking. Off down towards Rathgar now and I could feel a shift was happening inside me, negative thoughts were creeping in and I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I had been, the girl on her own who I was running with must have sensed this, and, I think it was as we were coming down to the Dropping Well, she ran up close beside me and firmly said “don’t you give up” and that was it, it was exactly what I needed, I realised I had been living in my head the last mile or so , letting that little voice in too much, I needed to channel in and find the zone and get out of that headspace. Thoughts of Thursday tempos and Sunday long runs that I had felt so good during got me out of the negative headspace but the one thought of all that really pulled me through was telling myself that the DBR family were all going through it too, this is what the last 23 weeks had been for and I knew at that point that no matter how hard it got I wouldn’t stop. I had perked up and I took another gel just after the 20 mile mark, I looked at my watch and we were running 7 min mile pace, it felt good but I knew it was too fast, the girl I was running with (wish I knew her name) also noticed the speed and pointed this out to me and I decided to pull back slightly.
Miles 21 and 22 felt like my longest miles, not because I was feeling bad, my legs were feeling it of course, but all I wanted at this point, was to get to heartbreak hill so I could get it over with and stop thinking about it. And sure enough it arrived, I put my head up, dug in my heels and I pushed myself up to the top of fosters avenue where the two loudest supporters of the day, thank you Amy and Rachel, were standing roaring me on. Mile 23 and we were on the home straight and I was so grateful for the reward of the downhill on Fosters Avenue. Onto the Stillorgan Rd and the UCD flyover, by the time that was over and we were on Nutley Lane I was really really feeling it, I had very little left to give but knew there was very little left to go and all I needed to do was stick to the pace and keep on going. Mile 25 and 26 are pretty much a blur when thinking back on them, probably because I was concentrating so hard on keeping it going at that point, I spotted Cathryn around the mile 25 mark on the Merrion road and it was so good to see a friendly, familiar face at such a late stage in the race, although I’m pretty sure I wasn’t looking as good at that point. My Dad had made a mad dash from Terenure and was now roaring me on down the Northumberland Road. Then I spotted it, the beautiful blue road, I couldn’t wait to get my feet on it, and I thought that finish line would never reach me. I threw that big mental elastic band around it and kept on pulling towards it. The smile appeared back on my face and I sucked in the crowd’s electric energy. My foot over the finish line and I saw I had run 3.17.20 and had beaten my 26-year-old self by 11 minutes. Result!
Although I ran the 26.2 miles (my Garmin said 26.3!) I couldn’t have done it and would never have enjoyed as much as I did without the amazing Dave Bradshaw he did all the thinking and the background work, I just did what I was told (well, most of time). Thanks, so much Dave.
DCM 2019, you were amazing. Roll on 2020.
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