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2013; Eat my dust Meno!
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RacoonQueen wrote: »Must be looking for something hard since you say you can't provide for her to make her moan anymore...
Depends what she used for the foam rolling
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Except when it comes to writing the freaking race report!:eek:
Oh god you guys are seriously gonna wish you never asked and or the keyboard is forcibly removed from my grasp as a matter of urgency....!! Looks like it could be another day... i really Will try to make sure it doesn't go into a week though. I'll put you all to sleep so soundly tomorrow that the most productive day ever Will be had in offices all over on Monday... that or you'll never wake from the coma!! 0 -
Oh god you guys are seriously gonna wish you never asked and or the keyboard is forcibly removed from my grasp as a matter of urgency....!! Looks like it could be another day... i really Will try to make sure it doesn't go into a week though. I'll put you all to sleep so soundly tomorrow that the most productive day ever Will be had in offices all over on Monday... that or you'll never wake from the coma!!
Any bets on how many thousand words?
I'm going to go for 6,000 it's taking this long! :pac:0 -
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The following contains a health warning (4,720 words worth of a health warning!); but should more than make up for my merely sporadic posting recently!
In July 2011, I had my heart and my head set on a sub 4 Dublin City Marathon. Having run my first marathon in Connemara in April and having loved every single minute of it, I knew I wanted to go again. Another 26.2 miles. But faster! I also knew I had a faster time in me – think of the hills in the West and the fact that I had befriended every single European who’d entertain me en route. So I bought THE BOOK. P&D Advanced Marathoning. If that can’t bring one to successfully achieve a marathon goal, then what can?! I embarked on the 18 week >55 MPW plan. I lasted 9 weeks. It broke me. I was knackered mentally and physically, and decided that it wasn’t for me. If I remember correctly, I did try to maintain the mileage but I had to drop paces and sessions. It took so much pressure off knowing that I could train for and run a comfortable 4:15 in Dublin instead. By the time marathon day rolled around, I felt great, and headed out with the 4 hour pacers. I managed to stick with them for 15 miles; and then I gave Meno his first taste of my dust… I picked it up and managed to run home in 3:53. I was ecstatic with my result. But it may have created a monster…
When I ran 3:08.07 in Berlin the following September and realised what consistent hard work and commitment could result in, I got the sub-3-potential bug. I wanted my next attempt to be it. The one that got me into the club! However, when Digs realised we had both qualified for Boston and there were still places (and apparently Coach had run it before), we couldn’t but enter it. And I had to decide the sub 3 attempt would have to wait. The plan for Boston was to PB. The plan was executed and I ran a tough but successful 3:06:21. It wasn’t up for discussion what I wanted next though. Interesting to note that this was discussed at home heaps of times and my desire to run a fast marathon is akin to Digger’s desire to get his 5k time down – different strokes eh! The sub 3 marathon was going to be a challenge. Could I do it 6 months after Boston? Would I be better targeting a Spring marathon with another 12 months training under the belt? Should I wait for DCM 2014 altogether?
Based on how good I felt and how well things were going, we – the Foot, the Officer and the Coach – decided to go for DCM 2013. I enjoyed a structure-free couple of months before training was to start. During this time, I ran and raced as and how I wanted. As an excuse for a weekend away, we agreed to race the Achill Half Marathon in July; after which training was to begin in earnest.
When the first draft of the rough plan arrived, I was especially looking forward to the week ending 29 September which would have me “wanting to give up running forever!” Nice. Nothing in the plan was set in stone – there was simply a discussion surrounding the key sessions and the goal races.
For the last 4 months, I have pretty much run 6 days a week (MPW varying from 30 – 70 miles) with a weekly estimated average of 50-55 MPW. Each and every mile was a quality one; whether it was at 9:15 m/m pace or 6:10 m/m pace. It was a balancing act between training, working and living but thanks to my inner organisatron, I pulled it off. I ran to work or home from work; I was up at 6am foam rolling and stretching; I planned meals and packed lunches; I changed in bathrooms and ran with backpacks to and from events, just to get it all done. Not easy or straightforward, but doable if you really want to!
Training went really well. The races of note were the Frank Duffy 10 Mile, the Athlone Half and the Kilcock Kilomarathon; in the first two of which I ran PBs of 64:32 and 85:34 respectively. The Kilomarathon was an MP session which went according to plan thanks to ecoli’s willing assistance. While I ran a PB in Athlone, I was a little disappointed not to have broken 85 minutes but there was no point in focusing negatively on that. In the run up, I also ran a 5k PB (without Coach’s best wishes…) of 18:43 and a 10K PB of 39:23 (in the absolutely splendid and wonderful Donadea Forest 10k race at the start of October).
As much as I like the idea of doing long LSRs with company, marathon training is demanding enough on one’s time and life, so it suited me more to fit in my long runs as and when I could. This meant a lot a lot of solo miles; including a 24 mile run around Marlay with an Aviche ear-worm and 3 lines from the song going around and around and around in my head!
With over 800 training miles, some confidence boosting PBs, a confidence bashing HM session, and the growing terror of attempting a 3 hour marathon off an 85+ min HM time, taper time rolled around. The phantom pains and the nightmares started and the realisation of how much I wanted the result kicked in. Leaving work on Friday evening, I was a bag of excited nerves – totally wired! Despite the weather on Saturday, I was feeling good. I sought out every ounce of good karma by volunteering at Marlay Parkrun and baking flapjacks and scones for the club pasta party that evening. On Sunday, I was feeling strangely calm. MS et al hosted a wonderful brekkie and I spent the rest of the day (after I'd had my go-faster Sportsworld inspired manicure!!) on the couch resigned (but not in a defeatist way) to the fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do at that stage that would make any difference.
I slept well on Sunday night and was delighted to wake up to a nice and notatall apocalyptic morning weather-wise. The temperature was perfect and the wind was typically typical for Ireland. Nothing that would cause you to bat an eyelid on another training day. Everything was pinned and packed so it was simply a matter of eating and getting out the door. Meno and MS didn’t know it but I could hear them reassuring my mother that I was well prepared and everything would be great. Here’s hoping Meno was to be right about something for once! we arrived at the Mespil where I sorted myself and bid the laughs of the pacers Adieu (not before dropping a panicky tear or two on the sly to Digger 
) I headed up towards the start area where I was starting to feel terribly excited and nervous. It was quite comforting to note that everyone was bricking it in the warm up area!!
Unfortunately in terms of the race report, my memory from when we lined up and gun went off becomes a little hazy. Even more unfortunately for you guys reading, my hazy memory is likely to fill several more pages!
Once we got going, I settled into a very comfortable pace, if not a little fast. Within the first half mile, I was where I wanted to be; so, knowing my body the way I do, that is pretty much when I stopped clock watching. I was with ecoli at this stage and I knew that I was in a rhythm and once I could manage to stay comfortable and ahead of the 3 hour pacers, it was game on! The first few miles absolutely flew by. At about 3 miles (though I really have no idea), the 3 hour pacers put on a bit of a surge and we began to get swallowed up. It was a little disconcerting but after a quick chat and clarification I realised everything was still gravy. I’m happy to say that that was the last time I saw the 3 hour guys until that afternoon in the pub. Once I got some clear ground, I went back to my happy place and it wasn’t long before we were entering the park. I copped a guy from the club and started waving; but was reminded via some friendly Tallaght AC channels that I’d need all the energy I could muster in due course and to keep my enthusiasm at bay.
As we made our way up Chesterfield Avenue, I tucked in with a group of guys, to shield the headwind a bit. The pace dropped a little but I was expecting this and as much as it went against how I was feeling, I knew I had nothing to gain by belting off trying to hold pace for that little stretch – the energy I would have used would have cost me later on so the effort levels were kept comfortable. I went through 10k bang on target and popped a couple of jelly beans with some ‘better safe than sorry’ gulps of water. At this point the wind was coming sideways and I think the 6’5 guy on my outside decided he’d had enough and moved to let me break the wind for a while. Not that I was in a position to give him any reprieve with his head up in the clouds and me down in munchkin land. We continued on through the park nice and steady. When we hit the downhill I was careful to maintain consistency as quite a few bodies passed me and ploughed on ahead. One of the guys from the club caught me as we were heading out of the Park. After a brief ‘looking good’ exchange he headed on. I could hear a couple of shouts for the club and watching out for supporters was a good distraction.
I was prepared for St. John’s Hill and the couple of surrounding lumps and bumps and while the advice was to ease off the throttle, I was happy that I could sustain pace with little increase in effort. I mentioned to ecoli that this was the point during the Rock’n’Roll Half at which I had exploded and experienced a desire to drop out of a race like no other in a long long time. So it was nice to motor on through this part of the course feeling comfortable. RQ was on supporter’s duty and it was great to see the familiar face. I’d pictured the course a million times and as I was running I kept picturing landmarks that would indicate another bit done, and the fact that I was getting closer to the finish line.
For some reason, around this 9/10 (?) mile point, I kept thinking about Maeve Higgins who I remembered was usually out around those parts on marathon day. Someone must have given her the heads up of my creepiness because she wasn’t out. I searched the faces on the side of the road but to no avail. No Maeve shouting for the ladies It was some distraction though because I genuinely don’t remember the next couple of miles passing. All of a sudden we had a Quirky in tow and it was all craic. I was expecting to see one of MS’s friends and her bunch of orange balloons coming through Inchicore; and as promised they were like a beacon in the distance and another confirmation that the halfway mark was closing in. One of the girls from the club who was out on her bike roared that I was “THE NINTH LADY IN THE DUBLIN CITY MARATHON” just before we turned onto the Crumlin Road. I was a little bit excited to hear that and it put a smile on my face. However, over the next 10 miles, I managed to swap places with only one lady from Leevale AC yet my position (as it was called out from the roadside) varied from 8th to 12th! I had to laugh at this and jested to whoever would listen “that I wish the crowd would learn how to frickin count!!”
We were approaching halfway bang on target (pretty much an even split for my A Goal of 2:58) and I put in a few quicksteps to bounce through in 1:28:53. I was feeling good and extremely happy that everything was going according to plan.
I knew there would be plenty of people out on the latter half of the course so I had focus points and was looking forward to seeing everyone. My brother and family were to be on Cromwellsfort Road so looking out for them kept me busy; I saw them in the distance, shot a smile and a wave and before I knew it, I was ‘climbing’ up towards the KCR. I had another handful of jelly beans and some water. Even though I felt good, the sun was out, I was getting warm and I could feel myself starting to perspire. A friend had texted to say she’d be out with her kids around Fortfield Road so I took off the arm warmers which Digdig had picked up for me during the week when the weather forecast wasn’t looking so hot. (Aside - when one gets a text asking if one needs anything in Amphibian King and hears nothing for 2 hours until the next text which says, quote unquote, I just got you a romantic present, one can rest assured that they aren’t being whisked off to Paris anytime soon!! Anyway, I spotted my pal who had ‘Go on Orna!’ written on a blackboard and threw her my sleeves – dare I say I have a great aim at race pace!
I was on home turf now. About 4 of my Tuesday medium long runs had been parts of the latter half of the route, where I’d leave work in Ballsbridge, run to Harold’s Cross, up to the KCR and then back in by Terenure, Rathgar, Milltown, and Clonskeagh. (Once I had planned to include Foster’s Avenue and come back in the N11 but my maths and mapping abilities failed me (surprised much?!) and I realised that while a 12 mile run is a good distance, and south Dublin is small; it’s not THAT small! Ecuirky noted my familiarity of this last 11 miles along with the fact that I was well on target, feeling good and the hard part of the course was well under the belt.
Mile 15 -16 was Sportsworld land. Club members were out in force stewarding and supporting and the pace (knowingly but not stupidly) dropped to put in a slightly fast mile. Grandad Digdig was out on his bike cheering me on. He called my name so many times, I half wondered whether he was expecting me to stop and have a chat with him! I also saw my aunties, one of whom is extremely short and probably shouldn’t ever find out that I subsequently asked whether she was sitting on the kerb when I passed! The support and the road surface (yes, the road surface! A favourite conversation topic of the Officer!) meant that this mile took nothing out of me. As we headed into Rathgar, the reigns were pulled on me; although I’d like to think I would have maintained sense myself, and not thrown the success of the last 16 miles down the swanny! Club coach Emily was in Rathgar with a couple of the girls and she was all smiles and shouts that I was looking great.
There had been one lady in a white vest a fair bit ahead of me since she had put in a spurt in the Phoenix Park way earlier. I knew I was gaining on her, particularly after my fast SW mile, but she kept gunning the downhills and every time I seemed to get near her, she’s power off again. Part of me wanted to chase her – the sensible part of me which insists on respecting the distance of the marathon was thankfully winning out. She was comfortably within my sights as we turned onto Orwell Road – when I say ‘comfortably within my sights’, I mean that had it been a 10k or Half Marathon, she would have annihilated me; but with 8 miles to go and based on how I was feeling, I felt confident that I could reel her in. It was a good focus point. On a personal level, I felt dreadful passing one girl on Orwell Road who was struggling and possibly limping; but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that on a competitive level, it gave me a buzz to keep fighting for places (bearing in mind I didn’t know how far inside or outside the top 10 I was currently standing). As we headed down towards The Dropping Well, I didn’t put on the brakes the way I had at other downhill sections but instead I let the hill take me and took the chance to shake out the arms and shoulders. The little climb at St Anne’s came and went with little more than a joke about how excited Digger might be to come across the fantastic new road surface…
We rolled around towards Clonskeagh at which point I think I was starting to feel a little yucky. Breathing was good, spirits were high, legs were tiring but nothing worrying or worse than expected at that stage. My concern was the pukey feeling in my tummy. Apart from a couple of handfuls of jelly beans and a few regular sips of Lucozade and water, I hadn’t been excessive in my consumption so needless to say I wasn’t overly enthused with the development of this sugar-belly! There was nothing I could about it though so I made the decision that it was water for the remainder and started calculating how many seconds I could spare if it did all come back to say hello; and if it did so, how much would it dehydrate me and what could I do to ensure it didn’t end my race. Those thoughts distracted me no end and I didn’t even notice the drag by UCD pass under my feet.
At some point around the Mosque, a chica in a blue vest made a move on me (lads, don’t even waste your breath! ) and jumped out in front of the small group which had formed. Since passing the girl on Orwell Road, I was kind of in fightin’ mode so I found this move rather displeasing! What should I do? Fight back for my place? Or leave her on? Bearing in mind that she could have been running a very easy pace for her to this point and was planning on pushing it for the last few miles… bearing in mind that even if she was planning on maintaining current pace, my finishing kick can leave something to be desired and if I stayed with her she could end me in the last 100 metres. The thoughts and conflicts were unbelievably distracting and thankfully I never ended up having to make my own decision on it. We turned the left corner towards Roebuck and our small group swallowed her up again. Though I was happy to have stayed strong, I couldn’t completely relax that I’d earned a place for keeps. I can’t complain about this though because the marathon fatigue was setting in, and any and every bit of impetus to dig in was being stored and drawn upon. I (in my mind anyway) powered up Roebuck Hill. I was devastated that Ray D’Arcy wasn’t to be seen or heard; though he maintained the following morning to have been in his usual spot. Gosh I feel like such a cheap RTE celeb hag but whatever gets you through eh?! Ecuirky let me know that I hadn’t lost a heartbreak second (sure aren’t hills my friend? Don’t I eat them for breakfast?! ) and for the first time I let myself think I might be in for a successful race. A measly 5 miles left. That doesn’t even feature as an obstacle. 5 miles I thought – ‘Pah’ I said! My lack of modesty lasted about 400 metres; I have far too much respect for the marathon distance to poo-poo it. Anything is liable to happen – particularly over the last 5 or 6 miles – such that confidence to a certain level is good, but anything more can be detrimental.
On the N11 heading towards UCD, Blue Vest Lady appeared to have dropped and White Vest Lady was coming back to us. I had a plan. It took a little more effort than I wished to exert; but I knew if I pulled it off I’d be doing well. So I put the boot down before the flyover to hang on White Vest Lady’s shoulder. And as we hit the main incline of the fly-over, I went for it to make sure that I passed her with enough strength to put some distance between us. I don’t know how things would have panned out had she fought back, so luckily for me, she didn’t.
Coming down towards RTE, the ‘humor me’ mind games started… If I ease back now and run 3 X 7 or 8 minute miles, where would that leave me? Would I be happy? Would I have any regrets? Yes. No. No. No. Yes. Maybe. Totally. Don’t be so ridiculous. You want this. You’ve worked for this. Dare I say you deserve this. You give up now, throw the last 23 miles away and you have no one to blame but yourself. And, by the way, why are you having this conversation with yourself, you don’t feel the need to ease off and give up right now at this very moment do you?! No I didn’t. So I pushed the mind aside and just kept going.
As we got closer to Ballsbridge (the endpoint of pretty much every single recovery run for the past 4 months!) another guy from the club started shouting at me to ‘keep on going; you’re going great…’ and offering me gels and water and anything I might need – little did he know that had I even copped a glance at a gel, his shiny bicycle could have ended up covered with the contents of my stomach!
As we turned onto Shelbourne Road I may have communicated that I (to paraphrase…) didn’t feel so good. Thankfully my French was understood and no hard feelings were taken. I decided I’d had enough of pacing the superbug and gave him what was no doubt a welcome break from my company (or lack thereof); while the doc witnessed my most mentally weak moment of the day – my voice cracked as a I pieced together a ‘not yet! It’s too early to push! I can’t…wah wah wah”. The tears didn’t come and I did regain control of the panicked breathing; but it brought me back so much to a year or two previous when I was struggling so much with certain goals and where every race was a terrifying ordeal with fear of failure – in hindsight, the races where I didn’t hit my goals were most likely the most important ones!
If you thought from reading the above waffles that the first 24 miles were a blur… the last 2 point pain are indescribable! I remember being in pain. Thankfully, I mean ‘fatigued’ and ‘this-finish-line-needs-to-appear’ pain and not ‘I’m-done-I’m-giving-up’ pain. I was able to focus and keep going, and while I have no recollection of how the legs or lungs felt, every inch of my core was in knots. I glanced in the window of the gym at trinity because I could feel a blue vest haunting the corner of my eye and I had to confirm it wasn’t the girl from Clonskeagh. I was happy to see it wasn’t her but remained unsure as to how safe my (unkown) placing was. I heard lots of shouts coming around by College Green but at that stage the noise inside my own head was drowning out everything else. I’m not sure exactly where I lost Alan the Quirky Bostonian but I vaguely remember a ‘you have this’ as Molly Malone came into view.
I knew I knew the finish line was way up Clare Street on Merrion Square, but I kept expecting it to appear on Nassau Street. The seconds weren’t showing on my watch so I didn’t know how much wiggle room I had on my side to go sub 2:58. Even though I don’t have a good sprint finish, I was able to pick off quite a few guys in the last 600m; people who were struggling more than me. (I didn’t realise I’d chicked Vader until way later in the day – it’s one of my prouder moments as he has been running really well for some time now. The finishing straight photographs tell that story quite well… I’m sorry Philip... mini victories though and all that!) I could see my mum and her BFFFFF about 75m from the finish line grinning from ear to ear and proud as punch. It was right then that I knew I had broken 2:58 and my own Cheshire cat face surfaced with some fist pumping! I was lucid enough to remember the all important finish line windmill and I bounded into the arms of the first person who’d have me (unfortunately for Eugene Coppinger!!) I collected my medal and my T-shirt and bee-lined for Coach (who had finished a moment or two ahead of me!) to congratulate everyone on their respective races and enjoy the first mouthful of delicious beer since the beginning of Noktoberfest.
I knew the moment taper started that the training was done to facilitate a sub 3. I also knew that anything could go wrong and that it was vitally important to steer clear of snot monsters and dog leads! Despite all of that, we all still need that all important bit of luck on race day. So in that regard, a huge thanks to Coach for cooking up a pre-race storm (whether paranoia of CL-style cooking and causing myself possible poisoning prompted that is another thing!) and an equally huge thanks to my non-digger number one supporter Olwyn for leading a black cat across her path just before instructing the end of a rainbow to land on the not-head of the child of Prague!
As expected the post race craic was epic and it was great to catch up with everyone. There’s a whole nother 5,000 words that could go into that report but I think I’ll leave you be for now! IF you’ve managed to make it this far, I suspect you’ve suffered more than I did throughout the marathon… so well done for reading!
Before I sign off, I just want to say a huge thanks to all the boardsies for the good wishes and encouragement over the last while. To Meno and his lack of filter, Martha and Mr Stew for the constant support and encouragement to eat chocolate and drink wine, Ecuirky for the hard labour, Blocky for setting the bar so low… everyone for the sponsorship, everyone who I haven’t forgotten but haven’t listed. TRR for all the time and advice, bigging up and beating down Digdig for the patience and understanding… and all the naysayers for making me train even harder!!
Final and official statistics:-
Gun time: 2:57.35
Chip Time: 2:57.31
9th Lady Overall
245th Position Overall
Rank 249
First lady for a National Team Bronze
3rd FS
3rd Dublin Female
I'm now 6 days into my 14 day ban on running and making the most of my recharging!! Between working and writing this report, for the past week I have been busying myself with copious amounts of chocolate and wine, and this evening is to be no different. What's next will be revealed in due course!! Over and out for now folks!
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Great report and mighty overview on going from where you were to where you are now! Still quite can't get over how good that was last Monday! Savage. But please, please don't go ultra!
Also loved how both AMK and RunningKing thanked the report! Make a decision man! :P0 -
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Super report and super race - very well deserved.
The one thing I seen from you at the 10 miler and the HM in Athlone is the sheer determination and concentration that you have for the entire race. Its to be applauded.
Well done from both me & RK 0 -
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RacoonQueen wrote: »Multi quote man jeez
Sure he is only new with 12 posts, give him a chance to get to know how it works! 0
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