{"id":322,"date":"2010-10-25T19:04:42","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T18:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/?p=322"},"modified":"2011-02-28T16:12:46","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T16:12:46","slug":"dublin-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"2010 Dublin City Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This was my 3rd Dublin City Marathon and, although I was ready and very excited to run it, I was a little sad having just dropped off one of my best friends at the airport for an early flight and a long journey home. As a result\u00c2\u00a0 I was (uncharacteristically) very, very early for the race and had plenty of time to park and potter before getting anywhere near the starting area. I even had time for a cappuccino from Starbucks, not ideal preparation but it felt appropriate for the day.<\/p>\n

On the was there I was asked by a guy to take his photo with his phone, it was for his wife and of course I obliged. We were walking in the same direction and naturally chatting as we walked. He asked about my goal and I said anything under 4.30 would be great, he said “stick with me and I’ll get you under 4 hours. I laughed not realising he was serious… really serious!<\/p>\n

He kept repeating it and made me promise that I’d stick with him, it slowly dawned on me that\u00c2\u00a0he didn’t want to run alone and to be honest I was getting a little scared. We got to the baggage area and his tent was some distance from mine. The area was crowded and he told me (yes, told me!)\u00c2\u00a0to wait where I was while he dropped off his bag and we’d walk to my tent together. He made me promise I’d wait… of course I said sure, I’ll be here, but as soon as he was out of sight I took to my heels and darted through the crowd like my life depended on it. My tent was around a corner and somewhat out of sight but even so\u00c2\u00a0I stood in line nervously looking back the way I came just\u00c2\u00a0incase I had been followed by my stalker. Finally I ditched my bag and made my way to the start area,\u00c2\u00a0occasionally looking around\u00c2\u00a0terrified that I might be tracked down.<\/p>\n

After much mingling the appointed time had arrived and we were off. I felt really good from the start and focused on keeping a steady pace, I was looking for another personal best and after sticking to my training plan I had no reason to fail.<\/p>\n

At around 20 miles the going got really\u00c2\u00a0tough but that was to be expected and I ran through it with confidence that it would pass. Unfortunately it didn’t and I struggled for the last 6 miles but I did manage to keep the pace up and crossed the line in 4 hours 23 minutes (and 54 seconds), that’s a pace of\u00c2\u00a0 10:00 minute miles! My best ever!! YAY!!!<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0Here’s my race: http:\/\/connect.garmin.com\/activity\/54497401<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was my 3rd Dublin City Marathon and, although I was ready and very excited to run it, I was a little sad having just dropped off one of my best friends at the airport for an early flight and a long journey home. As a result\u00c2\u00a0 I was (uncharacteristically) very, very early for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewtully.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}