I Did It!

I am pleased to say that I am now a Marathon finisher. I completed the Dublin Marathon last Monday in 4 hours, 33 minutes and 55 seconds. I had hoped to complete it in under 4.5 hours but I figure that time is close enough so I am happy with it.

We had a great day for it - beautiful clear blue skies - but it was very cold with a high of only 8 degrees celcius. As you can imagine there were a lot of cold people in shorts and t-shirts standing at the start line early in the morning! The atmosphere was brilliant though with everyone encouraging eachother and even quite a few people dressed up! At 9am the gun went off and we were off!

For the first 14 miles (22.4kms) I was feeling quite good and was enjoying the crowds of people that had shown up to cheer us on and comradery amongst the runners. However, slowly I began to find it harder and my pace began to slow. At around 21 miles (33.6kms) I "hit the wall" and had to stop to walk for the first time. Starting to run again after walking, even walking for only a very short time, was pretty tough but I managed to do a run/walk combination for the next couple of miles until I got a new burst of energy around 23 miles (36.8kms) and ran the rest of the marathon, finishing with a smile!

A big thanks to my darling husband who cycled around cheering me on at mile 5, filling up my water bottles in my fuel belt at mile 14 and cheering me on again at mile 16. Thanks to Andy too who joined Johnny at the finish line to cheer me on and then had us over to his place afterwards to celebrate with a well-earned bottle of champagne and some home-made chocolate brownies! YUM! :-)

If anyone is interested, you can see the route I ran as well as my pace, elevation and heart-rate by clicking here - all thanks to my Garmin Forerunner 405 sports watch.

Some of you have already asked if that is it for me and running now but I am pleased to say I haven't given up just yet! Both Andy and Johnny are talking about joining me for the Berlin Marathon next year in September and I think one of my next challenges will be a triathlon at some stage next year too! Watch this space! :-)