Dublin half-marathon - 2008

Saturday September 20th, 2008, it's 10:05 a.m. Myself and Eleanor are waiting for the start of the 13.1 mile race, also known as the Dublin Half-marathon. The atmosphere around is a mixture of excitement and tension. Everyone is edging closer to the start line even though we haven't actually started yet. We're all just packing in tighter together.

I can see above most of the crowd, and I see that people ahead have started to run. The bobbing heads move closer and closer until the person in front starts to run. That's my cue. We start running. Unfortunately it was a tad early, everyone has to stop to walk again for some reason that I never did figure out. But a minute later, it's the real deal, and we're coming up to the official start of the race (it's not really fair that the elite athletes start closest to the line, as I'm less fit surely I should get to start on the line, so I have to run a shorter race). We cross the line, I can hear the beep of the timing machine as it reads my timing chip.

The first mile is at a nice pace, myself and Eleanor are chatting away, sure that this is a pace we can go at the whole way around the course.

We're passing people, and there are people passing us. Mile marker two slips by, and we'll be coming to the first drink station soon. That's a good thing too, since the weather has cursed us with a fantastically hot day. And I'm in a long-sleeved t-shirt. I realise I'm dressed very wrong for the next 10 miles as I throw the second half of my cup of water over my face.

The next few miles pass uneventfully, and I'm feeling good. Around mile 6 we get lapped, I would have liked to have been over halfway when that happened.

Passing by the start/finish area for the third time, and the last except for the actual finish, I'm starting to feel it now. Around 5 miles to go. Eleanor is still going very strong beside me. Running along the main road that cuts through the Phoenix Park is tough. That road just seems to go on forever; and by now I'm breathing hard.

Regardless of this, we're going faster now than we were for the first few miles, and we have been going faster for a mile or two. I keep telling myself the faster I run, the sooner it's all over!

Mile 10ish, I decide to break out an energy gel, in fact it's the only one I have with me. I take half of it in, and I drink lots of water, those things suck the water right out of your saliva glands.

Running along the back of the park now, it's a long windy road, and it's hilly. Mile 11 is coming up, I see a man beside me, his legs just give out on him. He doesn't collapse, but he can't keep running, and he can't walk straight. I think to myself "Thank God I'm not feeling too bad"... if only I'd touched some wood. The bottom of that same hill, my legs stop working. We've only just started the twelth mile.

All I can now think about is the people I've passed who were being put into ambulances. I push that thought out of my head. Aware that Eleanor is beside me, and she is still able to run, I keep going. It's hard, very hard. Every step requires a precise mental effort.

I've slowed down. For the first time in a while, people are overtaking us. I can no longer talk, it uses too much of my focus, and too much of my dwindling energy reserves.

All I keep thinking to myself is there is less that two miles. I try to think about how many kilometres that is... it takes me a long time to work out it's ~3.2. I try to work out how far I'm running on each step, but that depresses me even more.

I have to stop running, for a few seconds I walk. But strangely that hurts even more, and I find it hard to balance. I go back to running.

We pass mile marker 12. Just over a mile to go. It's excruciating now. I've nothing left in me. I stop running twice more, both times only for a few seconds, but I'm angry at myself for doing even that.

Eleanor keeps my spirits up, and keeps me running. Around about 12.6 miles in, I pass an ambulance, I see a runner sitting on the back, she just can't make it the last half a mile (I found out later there was two people in that ambulance).

Another quarter of a mile passes, I can see people lined up for the finish area, I know I'm close now. That's when I see him. A man collapsed on the side of the road, within sight of the finish line, he's being helped by paramedics, they have ice on him, and are giving him plenty of liquids. Right there, for a split-second, I want to be that man. Ice and liquid sound better than running another third of a mile.

But I battle through that thought. I speed up, impercetibly to any observer, but I feel like I've reached warp 9 and the dilithium crystals are about to shatter. People start cheering, there are people running past me, which on any ordinary day would have me speed up to stop them, but at that point, I don't care. I've nothing left to give.

I run, my feet are pounding the tarmac, I can no longer control the force with which they hit the ground. I'm only ten metres from the finish line, and still, all I want to do is stop. My mind is screaming at me to stop, but I keep moving.

Finally, I get across the line. The second I hear that beep of my chip being read, I stop running. I don't care that I did it well within my goal time (sub 2:30, I did it in 2:15), I don't care that I just ran 21km, I don't care that I've fulfilled one of my goals for the year, I just want to lie down.

I find myself a nice tree, I get under it, and I slowly sip my water and energy drink (I learned the hard way not to gulp it down after serious exertion).

I don't know how long I was there for, I do know that it was worth it. It was worth the pain, it was worth the agony. Knowing that I ran those last two miles on will alone is a feeling that has to be experienced to be believed.