Dublin Marathon

DUBLIN MARATHON

OCTOBER 29, 2012

We went into the city to watch the four members from my running group who were running the marathon. See Previous post for explanations. Rob, Donal, Alan and Killian and we had so much fun cheering them on (and the rest of the strangers that nearly moved me to tears on several different occasions).

 

This is one SERIOUS female runner. You'll notice in the next picture, she's ahead of the 2:00:14 clock, at the 20 mile mark. So she passed the 20 mile mark in under 2 hours - meaning she finished the entire thing in about 2 hours 30 minutes...This may be the female winner actually (which, I believe, was 2:35). To put that into perspective, I just ran 13 miles in 2 hours and SEVEN MINUTES! She just ran 20 in less than 2 hours. I believe that's a 6 minute mile (or LESS) for the entire 26 miles!

These are the real elites - all finishing in under 2 hours 45 minutes.

Unnnn.believable. This man is running a full marathon, pushing a baby buggy. 

And up next, another phenomenal sight - a wheelchair marathoner - covering the entire 26.2 miles with his upper body. 

In the center of this one : Blue/Yellow Striped Shirt and Lime Green - you might be able to see, their wrists are tied together with a small string. That's because one of these runners is blind. Completing this entire marathon, in the dark. What an amazingly beautiful thing.  

I kind of like the fact that we don't know which one was blind. 

Not only is this guy in his late 70s (maybe 80s), but he is running with the serious elite runners! We're talking a 3 hour marathon for this man. 

And here are the first of our friends!! Donal and Rob on the left. Rob in orange (the ultra-marathoner, super runner) and Donal in the blue who started running less than a year ago. A man who has lost something like 70 pounds and finished this marathon in 3 hours 27 minutes!! I can't even impress upon you how fast that really is. That's a sub-8-minute-mile....for 26.2 miles. I, honestly, can't run that for 2 miles. Maybe less. I'm not exaggerating. 

Rob and Donal again, perfectly in sync. These two guys first met in our running group and they've become truly good friends. Rob agreed to train Donal for this and was a thoroughly selfless running partner for Donal. He even flew back from Scotland, just for this marathon, as he's just moved there for a Ph.D. And to think, these two only met 9 months ago... I told you we've got a special running group - we're oddly tight-knit. 

Mostly it was just straggler runners in pairs or on their own but every once in awhile, you'd see this WALL of people coming and these were the groups clustered around the "Pacers". (You see their blue flags that they wore on their backpacks, here). So these are expert marathoners who can reach their goal time within seconds. So there were 2 hours-30 minute-pacers, 3:00, 3:15, 3:30, 3:45, 4:00, 4:15 and on up to 5 hours. So, it was exciting each time you saw the pacers coming because the group was really excited and had that "herd-excitement-thing" goin' on. =)

Here's the only shot I got of our 3rd group member - Alan - he's in the black just in front of the Yellow shirt guy. Poor Alan was having a really tough time and despite holding onto the 3:30 pace for nearly 19 miles, he got very sick and really struggled. This is his 3rd marathon. Unfortunately, he spent his evening throwing up, after the race so clearly, his body was not in a good place. Still so proud of him for finishing in 3:53; a time millions of people would kill to get - even in tip-top shape - with no vomiting at all. =)

There were a fair amount of people in little costumes and I don't know how they did it. If I had snapped a picture of any of the number of guys with huge bloody circles on their chest from their nipples bleeding, you'd understand the harsh dangers associated with chaffing. So, how then, on EARTH, can these people where full costumes, or scratchy headbands/wigs?? I bet for these two, they ended up a with a bloody open wound across their foreheads. 

The kids across the street were holding bowls of candy for the runners!

Is that a....?? Hot dog?? See above explanation on chaffing. Mr. Hotdog looked like he was having a rough-go...not so funny now is it Mr. Hotdog??

The cape/flag read: The Celtic Gerbil

This family was amazing! And they were having the BEST time, even here at the 19 mile mark. 

And here's our fourth runner: Killian!! (lime green) We were so excited to see him! Killian was going for the 4:15 pace and he was holdin' onto it, here at 19 miles!

This is a man who was on a weight-loss reality show here in Ireland, started running less than one year ago and here he is, happy as can be, running a full marathon!! And I mean running! 

So excited for him!!!! 

It was a really great day watching all the runners and I'm sort of afraid to say, I do believe there is a marathon in my future.