In a little over five weeks I will set out on my second Dublin, indeed any, marathon when I will have another crack at breaking three hours.
Last year was my first tilt at covering the 26.2 mile distance and it was a steep learning curve, though richly rewarding. It's hard to adequately describe the buzz on the day with such incredible support from start to finish.
When people found out I was going to run the marathon, many assumed that because I was a professional athlete, I can run everything. In reality, going from 400m to 42km is night and day.
Some found that hard to believe and there was a lot of "ah, sure you'll be fine", but it’s all about endurance and time on the legs, and I simply didn’t have any of that prior to last year. The truth was I had never ran more than 5km.
When I ran 400m, it was all about lactate tolerance, crucial in short and fast runs. You hit 300 metres and lactic acid feels like it is coming through the eyeballs. You tolerate that for another 100 metres. It is all anaerobic.
A marathon is the opposite, and focuses on aerobic. For me to run a marathon, and even in training if I’m constantly pushing the body and building lactic acid, I’m going to hit the wall in the hour. You are trying to push that wall a way back.
Physiologically, you have to change your whole system.
Running a marathon was never really something on my radar. I had neither the interest nor motivation to ever consider it. That changed somewhat in 2019 when I went to support my sister who was running Dublin that year.
I was at the UCD flyover, where there is less than three miles to go, and there was such a buzz around. I began to think, "maybe" and that was purely from the atmosphere.
When I was competing, it was my job. It was easy to get up and be motivated. I was around like-minded people and had a plan. When I moved away from that, I lacked motivation.
I started into 5km parkruns and began to bring my times down a little, but I knew aerobically, I just wasn’t fit. My heart-rate remained low, but my legs were giving out too early. I needed a target, and in January of last year I just said, 'fu** it, I’ll do the marathon’.
My wife Charlottle thought I had lost my mind.
I had to change my mindset...when I was an athlete, I was killing myself. If I wasn't crawling home, it wasn’t a workout. That is a huge mindset shift.
My friend is a coach and I lent on him for a plan, but mainly, for accountability. Having someone there to follow up on the plan was what I needed. My first run was an easy pace 5km run and I was just plodding along. It didn’t feel right.
I had to change my mindset as all my sessions when I was an athlete, I was killing myself. If I wasn’t crawling home, it wasn’t a workout. That is a huge mindset shift.
And doing races in the lead-up helps focus the mind at different times. I wasn’t thinking about the marathon in October, I was thinking about the 10km at the start of the marathon series, then the 10 mile, then the half.
On the day itself, I was blown away by the atmosphere. I didn’t expect people six deep in Castleknock cheering you on, or a music band in full swing.
I’d never experienced anything like that. When I was competing, you were there for like 90 seconds and then you are gone. You don’t get the opportunity to sample an atmosphere like that.
When you are struggling at certain points, every fibre in your body is telling you to stop, but you connect with the crowd, or even one person who is willing you on. The effect that a stranger can have on you when you’re low on energy is incredible.
My target was sub-three hours. I always knew that was a stretch. The competitive side of me wanted to push for that rather than take it handy on my first marathon.
At around 19 miles, as I came through Rathgar, my hamstrings went. I dropped a minute per kilometre and soldiered through to the end, crossing the line in 3:16. I was happy with that, but straight away, I knew I’d go again this year to get closer to the three-hour mark.
You want to complete the half marathon feeling good, like there is more left in you
Tomorrow I get to see where I am on my mission to crack three hours at the half-marathon in Phoenix Park, part of the Dublin Race Series.
You want to complete the half feeling good, like there is more left in you. You need to remember this isn’t the race.
I'm treating it like an important training run and it’s a good time to ensure the shoes and gear are right, that my fuelling is correct.
I ran a 10-miler in England recently and earlier this year in Mullingar I shaved a few minutes off my half-marathon PB. I feel like I’m in a good place and I’d be hoping to get in and around that time of 1:25 again, but no matter how you feel in the lead-up, it’s all about on the day.
