Dingle Marathon

It was a race of two halves. 

I’ve often been told that a marathon’s second half begins at twenty miles, and the second half yesterday was noticeably different from the first.

I didn’t expect my hottest marathon to be in Ireland, in September. It felt even warmer than when I ran in Greece for the Athens Marathon. To add to the heat, it felt humid as well, and I could sense the air, moving very little, just sitting on me like a heavy blanket. Still, even my watch was agreeing with my assessment that I felt quite good, energised and up for it. The nervousness and mild anxiety that had plagued me in the week had been replaced by excitement, and as the three thousand plus runners assembled in the starting queue.

The difference between anxiety and excitement: The American runner Deena Kastor was always a little puzzled by friends and colleagues who told her that they felt anxious before a race. She asked them to describe what that meant physically, and they replied that they could feel their heart fluttering a little faster, their limbs trembled a little, and they started to feel a bit clammy. She realised that she often had some, or all, of these physical symptoms before a race, but she named it ‘excitement’.

I was feeling a little clammy but that was partly down to the weather. The info said that the roads would re-open after six hours (gun time) so that meant I had to cross the starting line quicker than I normally did to give me wiggle room. That also meant that I started with a group that were running a tad faster than I should have been. I didn’t realise until my watch told me that my first mile was 10 minutes and 46 seconds.

My watch talks to me sporadically, at each mile, sometimes with a male robotic voice, sometimes with a female. Very often they will tell me my average pace at the end of the mile for the first two or three, and then fall silent. Yesterday, the male voice spoke to me for every mile, even for mile 21, which, with some symmetry, was 21:21. That was a particularly bad time in a gruelling patch of time. 

I did try to slow down, but my second mile showed 10:19, as there was a bit of downhill in that leg. I knew that looking at my watch’s heart rate would be no good in this heat, so I aimed to just go on how I felt. And I felt quite comfortable at first. There was a biggish hill in around miles seven, which I walked a chunk of. This gave me the opportunity to take another photo of the alpacas that we’d stroked the day before. 

The route took in most of the Slea Head drive that we’d done the previous day. I saw the same Hill Fort Signs, the Ancient Beehive Huts signs, and the Stroke A Baby Lamb signs. I also saw quite a lot of the incredible coastline that makes up this peninsula, and it was for that reason that I chose to run Dingle Marathon. One American woman I spoke to said that she was looking for the most scenic marathon, and this one came up. She was not disappointed, and neither was I. It was stunning.

My attempt at using ‘RPE’ (Rate of Perceived Exertion) felt like a good plan for the first eighteen miles. I was doing a bit of walking on the hillier bits to break it up, and was comfortably breathing. I knew the mile times were slipping though as my legs got more tired, and I wanted to squeeze my first twenty miles into the first four hours, which I almost managed. Pushing myself on those last two miles was probably a mistake. That effort on my gut, with the gel that I’d recently taken probably contributed towards the wave of nausea and cramp in my stomach that happened soon after. 

I found a spot behind a bush to see if that would help. I then found a portaloo (or as the American woman called it – a portapotty). Nothing happened either time, but perhaps the act of squatting eventually improved the symptoms – apologies if that is all too much information; runners are, by and large, very scatologically minded.

I was able to walk/run the final few miles, within the six-hour window (5:38:58) but it was a long slogfest of a second half. Luckily, I had no time aims, as I was doing it for the views, and I knew it was going to be a hilly one. The first twenty miles were the fastest I’ve run all year, so that was a positive. And who doesn’t love to see an alpaca along the way.