Dublin City Marathon 2009 – Under my belt!

I was shooting for a 4hour finish in the Dublin City Marathon on Monday, but I somehow managed to do better than that… I completed it in 3.44 – not bad at all for my first Marathon!

It was the most amazing experience ever and I enjoyed every single millisecond of it. 

It was a lot easier than I was anticipating actually and that surprised me.  I didn’t get hung up on mileage, I just knew I had to sustain a decent pace for about 4 hours and I focussed on that.  The weather was perfect; sun shining down for the duration of it, yet it was crisp enough that you didn’t overheat.  I felt like a wild monkey at times because children were feeding me jellies from the sidelines on little plates.  When I ran past them, I grabbed such handfuls that their plates toppled and the remainder of their jellies fell onto the ground, as I stomped away stuffing them in my mouth… the people standing at the sidelines cheering us all on really makes the world of difference.  I found I ran faster in the designated cheering zones than anywhere else and it’s cuz they were shouting encouraging things and making us feel good about ourselves.  Encouragement does wonderful things for the psyche begorrah…

Whilst I was limping to the airport like an old woman, I got an email from my friend Tom, who informed me that I might qualify for automatic entry to the London Marathon, based on my time, sex and age.  Without further ado, I looked into it and it looks like I just might…  The cut off time was 3.45 and I did it in 3.44 and 54 seconds.  If I finished another 6 seconds later I wouldn’t qualify!  I then remembered the point where I was running through a cheering zone and I got an almerciful burst of energy; with 2.2 miles to go, I just started sprinting like a madwoman thinking I could sustain that until the end.  I heard people say “Jeeze yer wan is flying it!” ha!  I managed to keep it up for 2 minutes and then I went back to my usual pace, feeling a bit wobbly.  I think if I didn’t do that then, I would have come in later than 3.45

I am confused about one thing though and that’s the times.  Mine are as follows:

 

I started my own watch timer as I crossed the black mat (the official starting point).  When I finished, my watch said: 3.43, the Marathon Timer Clock said 3.47.  

The race website said my finish time was 3.44 and my chip time was 3.47.  Surely they have the chip time and the finish time mixed up, do they?  How could your chip time be higher than your finish time? I can’t get my head ’round it at all… 

Anyway, well done to all of you who ran…