No more planning.  Tick, tick, tick.  Time is here.

Late 9am Start.  Extra hour of sleep (clock fell back last night).  Long corral walk, 30 minutes+ after the Elites.  Same elite Africans I rode the elevator with this morning (GREAT hotel choice, Sis! – my 2^nd floor accommodations like the Olympics).

No Half, no 5K – thousands lined up ALL running 26.2 miles.  Always a bundle of nerves.  Not so much today.  3 of us marathoning, walked to the Start with Sis & husband Paul.

4^th largest race in Europe, 2^nd biggest field of participants EVER – for me, only 2015’s New York City Marathon larger.  Much more a fan of smaller races (crowds make me claustrophobic) – but this, magic #100.  Go BIG or Go Home, no regrets 🙂

Irish weather?  Not this day.  Cool sunshiny start.  Winds gusted time to time, skies waffled between overcast & sunshine – pretty much PERFECT.

Today, would run with Sis.  She’d keep me motivated/stay upbeat.  Sis’ GAME plan: Galloway’s Run Walk Run method, attempting a 2^nd Half negative split.

Wall of people.  Gun start, moseyed slow thru downtown Dublin.  Crowds thinned after Phoenix Park, Europe’s largest public grounds. Sunshine, manicured lawns.  BEAUTIFUL.  So much GREEN.  Exited before mile 10, climbed the largest of the day’s hills.

100 MARATHONS

Run Walk Run.  Timer rang, we’d walk.  Ding again, back to running.  Just dumb luck…but felt a bit jinxed with today’s hills.  UPHILL we’d charge, then her watch would alarm. Downhill’d all the walks.  Coincidence?  Hmm…thinking: childhood payback.

Castles & commuter trains, AWESOME crowd support.  2^nd Half & next slog of miles: 15-seconds faster.  Sis like the Energizer Bunny.  AND that attitude.  2018 goal: I will someday/somehow/somewhere be this upbeat 17 miles into a run.

[Sis’ suggestion] iPhon’d today’s marathon experience.  More payback?  Smiles, chitter-chatter, laughs then the 2^nd Half.  Like watching a train wreck – you just can’t turn away.  Laboured breathing, lack of coherent conversation, nonstop mileage updates.  Repeated words like a trained parrot.  Telling ya, I’m a hot mess.  HA!

THEN somewhere in the 20s (mile marker), Sis kicked it up another 15-seconds.  Ok fine, I’ll admit it.  My YOUNGER sister beef’d up our pace another 15-seconds, somewhere in the 20s & I faded.  Like the end of Titanic, I begged her to let me go – sure I was dying.  ‘No, no I’ll wait’: she said.  Then just like the film, they tear your fingers off the door & let you sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.  Yep, just like that.  LOL>

3 STRONG!  Think Sis took a coffee while waiting, but was there when I FINISHED #100.  Blanket-wrapped, awaited our family’s 3^rd finisher, my brother-in-law Paul.  That’s how we roll.  THREE MARATHON FINISHERS in this clan.

100 marathons.  Who would’ve guessed THIS 4 years ago, after running my first 26.2 in Anchorage, Alaska?  Lucky in life.

Colorado-bound in the early a.m. – outta vacation days.  Good problem to have, 2017: WOW whatta year!

SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon
SUNDAY 29TH OCTOBER 2017

 

K R Haga  Marathon Maniacs  4:46:57

Dublin Marathon 2017