Jim Lineen DCM 2017
Parked on Macken St 7.30am feeling good, nervous, excited. Did the walk of terror up to Merrion Square by 8am and looked around, almost took my bottoms off, decided a loo visit was the better way to waste another 15mins.
Bumped into a good few Dunboyners here all skulking around the loos, dropped my bag off and went to the yellow area where I immediately began to queue again for another loo.
Eventually I decided I’d seen enough of the toilets but would miss them once I tore myself away. By the time this was achieved it was now heading for 8.50 so I sneaked up the left and squeezed myself into the crowd about 8 heads back from the 3hr balloons, it was jammers, I think my feet weren’t even on the ground.
Hadn’t a clue where the Dunboyne crew were but as I’m normally running alone that didn’t bother me, so I shook the hand of an athlete beside and with a nod to the start line ahead I said ‘we made it’ and wished him good luck. He told me to F off 😬😬
Before I go further I’ll just write that I’ve done one marathon during my younger days in fit for life (2015) and was hoping to better that here by a good margin, hopefully get home audaciously under 3.15. I based that on doing 2 good halfs in August and on having a solid run of training since then.
My plan was to put in a good 1st half and then some , and hope the long runs I’ve done would stand to me come 20. This is probably not your textbook way to safely pace a marathon but for me …. having to slow down and eat some ‘umble pie later in the race would be ok so it was a risk worth taking, I’m still a noob.
The first 2 miles were hard to rein in (6.42 and 6.40), kind of like Pamplona ahead of the bull, but I was maintaining a safe distance back from the 3 hr pacers who I felt were a bit on the fast side like myself). From there though I settled down into a rhythm as we climbed from the Liffey to the park. It did cross my mind more than once – ‘where have the sub3 crew gone?’ I thought they must be nestled in ahead of the 1st balloon so as to keep ahead of the herd, that’s fine they won’t be seeing me up there. Wrong. They were on the train as we know and it was on schedule.
Anyway they passed me about the midpoint in the park on cruise control. This was okay though, I wasn’t racing the lads nor Lady Dan so I didn’t loose heart (not much anyway) but I was slowing. Miles 7 to 10 were now 20 to 25 seconds slower than I’d been doing earlier. I’d taken a couple of walk breaks too which I haven’t done anytime since DCM 2015.
From Chapelizod I was cramping mildly in both calves and eventually hams too and this went totally bananas as the miles went by, it seemed all I needed to do was lift an arm to wave at someone and like a marionette connected by strings my legs would wobble.
Going Thru halfway on 1.36 wasn’t as nice as it should have been as I knew how the next 13 would play out, wobble wobble
Walk breaks kept me sane and there were many, but I really wanted to catch up with Stephen Devlin and offer to come back with a wheelchair for him from the finish line 😬 , but joking aside the one thing he did say with 9 miles left to go before he left me in his dust was “I’m gonna finish this” and that he did (inspirational moment marked).
13 to 22 were dogged but I plodded on knowing I had family ahead in various places who’d travelled and given their day up to support me so the least I could do was continue.
Now over the 22 mile distance and going longer than I’d gone in training.
Fosters ave in the 23rd mile was the hardest, as I pole vaulted onto the path with an uber tight hamstring and couldn’t stand up straight for a few minutes while the next batch of pacers cruised past.
But the path on fosters avenue is no place to raise your kids so it was either stay here or get going again. 10 min mile here.
The last 4 miles were in the 9s as I ground it out in my own fashion, running maybe a half mile or mile and walking a bit, getting a welcome bottle of flat coke from my girls at UCD too.
The atmosphere then on Mount Street was magic and it kind of makes you float (again) if you know what I mean. So I Peter Panned my way over the line and collected my bag and GOT THE F**K OUTTA THERE 😁😁😁 .
So enough of the misery of marathon running and what about the joys…..
No.1 is just getting to the start line and then finish line and covering the distance of A MARATHON.
No.2 for me is I took 1hr and a quarter off my pb.
No.3 is the help and support you get from your crew, I had family everywhere ready with gels, electrolytes, neurofens, banners, cameras, cokes, and one sister Roisin even ran with me thru mile 17.
No.4 is the support you get from your fellow club members, they’re at every turn, on every ditch, up every lamppost, in every village, they’re on bikes in multiple places – behind every tree (Annemarie Sheehan and Ray Mitchell to name only two).
I’m sure I saw a manhole cover lift in Crumlin and out from under it yelled Annemarie at me to ‘come on Jim!!!’ yet again.
They’re all there keeping you working – it’s fantastic and gives you that extra 5% ah let’s say 10%.
A mention here for the Dunboyne Scouts too, who were at multiple points providing drinks and great vocals.
No.5 is the transformation into superhero who has just saved the city from doom, for one day, for mainly total strangers, who line places like The park and castleknock and Dartry and roebuck road and mount street, making enough noise to wake dead Vikings.
No. 6 is the huge aerobic fitness boost you now take on with you compared to before, I can outrun my 5 year old now !
Looking back at it all, I trained hard, prepared well, drank smart, and showed up fresh but I did too much too early and in doing so denied myself the chance to adjust my pace later by overloading and bringing on cramp (I really hadn’t foreseen that being an issue this time)
Anyway thanks for reading, roll on next year, yours sadistically, Jim (new pb of 3.36)
