Sorry for the delay - but the good news is that we finished our first marathon! Dublin was amazing!
We are behind in posting our story because we didn't have computer/Internet access the week after, as we traveled around the rest of Ireland. Then we got home late last Sunday night and needed to spend the week concentrating on time with the kids, work, etc. So here we are, two weeks later, just getting to the race report.
First, we arrived in Dublin at 6 a.m. Saturday morning (about 1 a.m. our time) and we are so lucky that The Dylan Hotel was so amazing - they let us check in at 6 a.m.! Good thing, because we had no idea what we were going to do in Dublin, in the dark, with all our bags and no sleep, at 6 a.m.! We crashed and slept until 2 p.m.
The next day we excitedly walked to the marathon headquarters to get our race goodies & walked around in awe - not only at the city of Dublin's sites but at at all the booths within the registration hall that were promoting marathons around the world. For a moment we thought "Wouldn't it be great to be destination marathoners?!"
Moving on... we had the typical experience the night before the marathon where neither of us could sleep. It must have taken us a good three hours to fall asleep and even then we were tossing and turning all night. But we woke up on time and felt good. We got ourselves ready, ate some breakfast from room service and headed out. Our hotel was only about 4 blocks from the start so we walked to it.
Standing in the crowd waiting for the start was surreal. I couldn't believe we were actually in Ireland about to run a marathon. It was fun watching all the different people and their pre-race rituals. We were so preoccupied we didn't really feel nervous at all.
As we started out, we knew we were going to take it easy. Since I had a cortisone shot in my knee for extreme pain the week before the race, and Rich had been having shin splint pain, we planned on going slow the first half of the race and see how we felt midway to determine our 2nd half strategy.
The weather was beautiful - cold but sunny. We were chugging along just fine at about a 10 minute/mile pace. We had a pact to stick together no matter what.
At about mile 8 my knee started hurting. I fell back from Rich and it took him a few minutes to notice. In particular, it was the down hills that were killing my knee. For a split second I panicked, felt the tears coming on and stopped them - figuring no way could I let the pain break me down or I would lose it. I had a flash of "Oh my God, the doctor was right, I'm never going to finish." Then I thought "F that," and I sucked it up, went through a few seconds of hyper ventilating and forced myself to take deep breaths, calm down and move on. I had asked the doctor if I could run through the pain ("runners knee," he had determined) and not cause any permanent damage. He had said yes so I made up my mind to do just that.
At the half, we were doing well. We were on pace at 2:15. Then things slowed down. What I hadn't counted on was how different the injuries were for Rich and I.
Rich had been grappling with shin splints throughout training, although they hadn't bothered him for a while.... until the weekend before the race. They reared their ugly heads again and despite a week of rest, by the middle of the marathon, Rich was in some major pain as well. The problem was that his pain was relieved by walking. My pain was exacerbated by it. Every time we would stop to walk, my knee would get cold and tighten up, and it would hurt more each time to start running again. For Rich, walking provided some relief and let him keep going. For me, going down hills was extremely painful and going up hills actually provided some relief. For
Rich, the opposite was true.
Despite all of this, during the race I have to say the crowd really kept me going. I was enjoying myself and taking in the sights, the sounds and the revelry. I loved hearing the spectators clap and cheer and yell "Great job, lads; keep it up lass! You're nearly there!" I found it quite inspiring. (It is known as "the friendly marathon.) I also enjoyed a few roadside candies and chocolate being handed out. Rich had none...he isn't a big talker or one who likes to partake in anything during the run. (More like .... let's say, focused... on getting the run over with!)
Around mile 22 we had given up on any time goals and were really just cheering each other on to keep going. When I felt good to go, he'd have pain. When he could run, I had to stop and walk, and so on and so forth.
At mile 25 or so, I said, "I just want to be able to run across the finish line." So we sucked it up and started running. At one moment Rich stopped and said "That's it, I'm done." I thought he meant he just wanted to walk, but in his mind apparently he meant he was not going to finish! We both had temporary moments of mental anguish like this throughout the race. But I said, "You can DO this; we're going to DO this together!" and he started running again. We turned the last corner and we were shocked to see that we had taken nearly five hours to run this race! Rich encouraged me to kick it up and make it under five hours (clock showed about 4:58). In hindsight, I wish I had just grabbed his hand and ran across the finish line with him. But we finished and our times were:
Chris - chip time: 4:56:18
Rich - chip time: 4:56:20
There were 11,700 runners in total and we finished at 7134 and 7135, respectively. I was 301 in my category and Rich was 1006 - but we don't know out of what/how many, so those places are irrelevant, really!
Afterwards, we limped the much-longer-now-that-we're-sweaty-and-cold-and-sore four blocks back to the hotel. We called our family and ensured them we were alive and well and had finished. Then we ordered room service (hamburgers, fries, wine), cleaned up and relaxed. We limped out to an amazing steak dinner that night and noticed we weren't the only limping runners in the place.
Overall, we had an amazing adventure together. Not just the marathon, but the four months of training and remainder of the trip in Ireland. We learned so much from both our own experiences and the advice and insights from readers of the blog, friends, family and our Twitter followers. We've had such a great time doing this. I personally want to do another one when I'm not injured (I can't believe I went 16 weeks of training uninjured and my knee gave out in the last two weeks before the marathon!) and see how I can do time-wise. But for now, I am so grateful that we finished - together.
I'm sure Rich has his own insights and version and hopefully he'll write them here as well. For now, I wanted to thank him again for this amazingly thoughtful, creative and inspiring gift. It lasted all year long and gave me something to focus on (besides work!), look forward to and strive for. And now I think I am suffering from post-marathon depression... i.e., I can see how these are addicting!!
Thank you Rich for the amazing gift. Thank you for fulfilling two of my life's goals with me (I found out he never actually had any desire to run a marathon - he just did it with me because I wanted to!!) and for inspiring me all along the way. This was an experience I will never, ever forget.
And thank you to our readers, supporters, family, friends and new running community acquaintances. We hope to do this again and we're trying to figure out what to do with this blog in the meantime. Any suggestions??
If you'd like to run the Dublin Marathon's 30th anniversary in 2009, check it out here.
So much better than the hip devices we used in the past. If you haven't tried one, I highly recommend it.
Chris and I are happy to report that we finished our 16 and 18 mile long runs on Sunday - despite a late Saturday night 
So we find ourselves trying not to think about it. "One run at a time" is Rich's motto and it's a good one. Like tonight, for example. I was running my seven miler and half way through I thought, "I have to go twice as far on Sunday.... oh 
