Paris is not kidding around with the cold today, so this Irish adventure is brought to you by a north-westerly wind at 15 mph.
Saturday, October 29th, 2005
After a quick flight and a bus ride taking about the same amount of time I arrive at my hotel in Dublin graciously provided by the fine folks at APLA. Few other runners have arrived- since they’re coming from so far away- so I relaxed in the hotel room and waited for Dena to get there. She finally made it in about 10 hours later than expected, but that’s another story about how Dena, one of the smartest people I know, can not read a schedule. After the happy, excited hugs of two friends who haven’t seen each other in a month we tidied up and headed out to the APLA meet ‘n’ greet at a pub in the heart of Dublin. Our whole crew showed up looking a little travel weary, but all jet lag was to be forgotten with the aid of Smithwycks- an excellent Irish lager and companion throughout the journey.
Sunday, October 30th, 2005
Dena, Kate, Arianna, and I headed back towards the river to try and find some breakfast before picking up our race day packets. We decided against the typical blood pudding and went for sandwiches at a mall-like food court. The thing about foreign food in food courts? Still yummy foreign food. After that we took a bus to the Royal something or other and picked up our race chips, bibs, and souvenirs. We got lost on the walk back to the hotel though, so for the rest of the afternoon I was a big whiny baby about how much I had been on my feet the day before a marathon. Wah. To make sure I was rested I spent most of the rest of the day in the following position:
Yes, that’s me reclined, feet up, and knitting.
That evening we had a pasta dinner to carbo load for marathon day and get us all pumped up. We sat with our training groups and the coaches and site assistants thanked us for our hard work to raise money and gave us last minute info for the day to follow.
Here’s my dead sexy running group:
Clockwise starting all the way to the left: Tara, Jason, Miguel, Brian, Shara, Kurt, Kate, Arianna, Me, and behind my fat head, Dena.
Monday, October 31st, 2005- Marathon Day
The organizers of the Adidas Dublin Marathon are geniuses, and therefore don’t start the marathon until 9am. After an early breakfast of toast and water (for me at least) Dena and I met with the rest of the AIDS marathoners at our hotel to walk together to the starting line.
Such a flattering look for me.
The walk over was cold, but otherwise good- until the heavens opened and scads of rain fell down on us. It was like god was playing a practical joke on us idiots. Fortunately, we idiots got the last laugh, as most of us had been provided with trash bags to use as impromptu ponchos. Other people in the crowd were sporting umbrellas, but some people were absolutely soaked to the bone and a little bitchy about it (cough Miguel cough cough). Here’s a picture of the crowd waiting for the start:
It rained hard for the first hour or so, then lightened to a drizzle, until it finally quit about three hours into the marathon. Of course, later I rode the hotel elevator with the guy who placed 4th overall- so to his mind it was raining the whole time. I was reluctant to let go of my poncho, but eventually I was producing too much heat to keep it on. Here’s a picture of the rain still falling as we ran up a tree lined street- I believe this is somewhere around miles 3-5.
There was a ton of gorgeous scenery, including the largest enclosed urban park in Europe, Phoenix Park, which is home to the Dublin Zoo and some incredible scenery.
Here’s the entrance to the park around mile 6 or 7:
And when the sun finally started to come out, even though it was still drizzling:
I was trying to capture a rainbow, but they're not very photogenic.
The sky at this point was incredible over the lush, rich green of everything. It had a sort of a silver cast to it, far more vibrant than just a grey, rainy sky. At this point we hadn’t yet made it to 10 miles, so we were running a slightly slower ratio than most people in my group were able to run. I was starting to get a little anxious about the rest of the race by this point, though, because I knew they would be speeding up at the 10 mile marker and I hadn’t been training at that speed for some time. However, when we got there I was feeling so great that I decided to go for it for as long as I could- and I did- for 10 miles! By the time we reached the 20 mile marker we had already lost a couple of people, most surprising of them our pace group leader, Kate, who started having horrible knee pain. This is the worst nightmare of race day- you’ve prepared perfectly and without injury then you get there and something goes wrong. It really sucks when it happens, and unfortunately both Kate and Dena experienced a bit of this. Happily, though, they both finished- and your first time out that’s all that really matters. Next time they can’t help but do better because they’ll be prepared for that one more thing to go wrong. So at mile 20 Dena and I split off from the other three remaining who decided they wanted to try and make it in under 5 hours. By then I was tired, but feeling good, and Dena was starting to notice blood on her shoe so we decided to go back down to the adjusted ratio.
We ran together all the way to mile 24. I was out of my mind with pride, as by that point I knew there was no way for my anxious visions of having my worst marathon to come true and because Dena had consistently been faster than me in training. It made me sad we had to split up, but I thought I would be running it in alone from mile 10, not mile 24, so mentally preparing myself at that point was a breeze. I ran alone for almost 2 miles.
Near mile 25 I started to fade a little and even thought of taking an extended walk break when at the exact perfect moment an APLA rep who saw my shirt ran up from the direction of the finish line. He shouted my name and told me to keep going, that I was sooooo close, that I was amazing- all the things that make a woman who has run 25 miles cry, take a deep breath, put her head down, and keep running. I caught up to someone I had run with once in training and we egged each other on until mile 26, but then he too had to fall back or risk stopping- so again I ducked my head and kept going. The last .2 miles the crowd intensified their yelling and I looked at my watch and realized what I was about to do. Tears streamed down my face and with every ounce of my remaining energy I hauled ass and sprinted across that finish line.
5 hours, 12 minutes, 43 seconds. My best time.
On the other side of the finish I was crying so hard they were asking if I needed medical attention. I shook my head and told them through sobs I was just happy. The runner just behind me started laughing and asked if it was my first marathon. No, I said, it’s my third. He laughed even harder and said he hadn’t cried like that since his first. Sometimes I am such a girl, I love it.
I waited for others I had left behind on the course and we took pictures with our medals:
From L to R: Tara, Me, Kate, Dena
After the marathon we took the longest, coldest walk in the history of the universe back to the hotel. Not one of us brought cash and we froze to death. Our hotel was less than a mile from the finish line and it took us over an hour to make it back. After a very long stretch and a longer shower we got ready and, believe it or not, went out for beer. We went back to the same pub where we had our meet ‘n’ greet the first time so that we could exchange war stories and drink out some of the leftover pain. We also decided it's true what they say about not being able to get drunk after a marathon. I noticed after the first 3 or 4 pints that I wasn't even remotely buzzed- and that's usually over my limit!
From L to R: Kurt, Magan, Jason, Shara, Brian, Dena (shorty), Miguel, Kate, Me.
Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
As you may guess- we did very little Tuesday. Since long walks are a big part of recovery, we spent most of the day doing that (really slowly). We saw this very cool statue of Oscar Wilde reclining in the park across the street from his former home:
We also went to the National Art Museum, which was free because the Irish know what they're doing. It was pretty good- I absolutely fell in love with this one contemporary artist who would paint fairly realistic scenes, but with unrealistic colors. Sometimes the painting would be completely skewed towards one color, other times certain elements were highlighted. I really like that. We also got a good laugh out of trying to go up and down the stairs without looking like total bafoons.
As the topper- we were lucky enough to get a private tour of Irish Parliament, since Dena knows the son of the former mayor of Dublin. I have to say I got a big kick out of the tour, even though we couldn’t take pictures. The building itself was once a private residence to someone obviously very wealthy from all the plaster decorations on the ceiling and walls and architectural details. Our tour guide made a lot of references to Ireland gaining it’s independence from the British, and evidently they’re big fans of JFK there since he was the first American president to address Irish Parliament in their house. He also returned to them the flag of an infantry of soldiers who fought with the colonies against the British for our freedom in the War of Independence. They have the flag hanging there. Who knew I’d have to go to Ireland to learn something about American History? Actually... probably anyone who knows how bad I am on the subject.
Dena and I went out that night for the requisite fish and chips, then met up with Kate for a little drinky drinky time before setting off on our road trip the next day.
Coming soon: Ireland 2: Dena’s Revenge
