DCM 2017 Mentored Novices Thread

earnyourturns

Good day to you all from the Southern Hemisphere! (I suppose that should be ‘gidday’, now I think of it.) Thought I’d drop in after some lurking over the past few months and provide my DCM story.

Now, I can’t really pretend to be a DCM novice - indeed, I was one of the first group of mentored novices back in 2009 under the watchful eye of amadeus (my username was ‘goofygirl’ back then), so I suppose this makes me more of a grizzled veteran!

At the time I was living in Canada, and trained over the Canadian summer. I had the dream run of training and the dream run on the day in October 2009: everything went to plan, I soaked up the atmosphere, had no cramps, no GI issues, yes, of course I wanted to stop and puke/lie down in the last 10km but that’s to be expected. I got around in 4:19 and was elated by the whole thing.

After that I moved to New Zealand - where I still am - and did the Dunedin Marathon in 2010 and the Christchurch Marathon in 2011. Neither of them came anywhere close to Dublin in terms of experience: there were only 214 people doing the full marathon in Dunedin (most people on the day were doing a half marathon), the course going around Dunedin harbour, and while it was terrifically scenic, it was also, well, a bit lonely. We were all so spread out that I was running on my own for kilometres at a time: at one point I needed to pee, and because there was no one around in either direction, I just ‘did a Paula Radcliffe’ and squatted down in the shrubbery at the side of the road. I chugged around in 4:22, I think.

Christchurch the following year was more of a ‘sympathy marathon’ than anything else: Christchurch had been devastated by a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and the city centre was destroyed. They decided to go ahead with the marathon but moved it out to nearby countryside. I wanted to show my support for Christchurch so took part. They also ran a half marathon and 10km concurrently, with the marathon being two laps of the half marathon course. So it was 21km around flat fields in the drizzle: twice for those goms of us doing the full marathon. Again, all a bit lonely, and chugged around in 4:25-ish (my Garmin went flat at the start, so while we were running, I had no idea at all of what time I was doing).

I decided ‘ah here, no more marathons’ at the point and did more hill running instead, including this absolute beast of a race called the Dunedin Three Peaks which is, as the same indicates, 26km up and down three of the 700m peaks around Dunedin, and which is absolutely killer. For some reason, a severely masochistic streak probably, I've done it four times now..

I said for a few years that the only way I’d do a marathon again would be if it was Dublin, because it’s just such a great atmosphere so last year I thought right! Dublin it is! I trained over the NZ winter (which is actually grand, I live in Christchurch, which isn’t too wet at all, and actually it’s spring and summer that tend to be the windier time of years), mostly in the Christchurch Port Hills and around Hagley Park (the part in the middle of town) where I do interval training once a week with a local running club. IAs well as training and working, I was also studying part-time for a postgrad diploma at the time, which in hindsight was absolute madness and impelling me towards hypomania!

Anyway, training was going grand and I was hoping to run 4:10 (I’d done a half marathon in June in 1:55:56 before starting my training proper) and would have loved to snuck slightly under if possible. Three weeks beforehand, I’d done my final long run and was very much looking forward to tapering! Did my final long run on the Saturday, and then on Sunday night at 9.40pm I got a phonecall from one of my friends: a friend of ours, who was also an ex-flame of mine, had drowned that afternoon in a kayaking accident. Boom. (Nothing like the death of a young, fit, vibrant, lusty friend to knock you sideways after a 32km run) The next few weeks I was just absolutely reeling: four days before flying back to Dublin for the marathon, I went to this funeral, which was just devastating for everyone as you can imagine.

So. Marathon day 2016. Not exactly in the best headspace for it. I set out with the 4:10 pacers, which even under the best of circumstances would have been ambitious, I think. Hung with them until the 13 mile marker and then dropped off pace. Now, a marathon is largely a mental game and frankly I had used up all my emotional reserves over the weeks beforehand! The part-time study hadn’t helped either so it was just a case of life overload as well as going out too fast. Miles 13-20 were a bleak, bleak time: I have never come so close to just giving up and DNFing, but and my family were on the course watching, to say nothing of that tracking thingy, so it was just one foot ahead of another. What was really helpful was the advice (from Boards, of course) to have an A goal, a B goal, and a C goal. The A goal (4:10) was well out the window, so I decided B goal was going to be 4:30 (screw 4:20) and the C goal was going to be to finish the sodding thing. Things actually perked up from the 20 mile park cause I knew if I’d got there, I could get to the end. Got to the end in 4:23 after having spent a few hours in black mental hole and swore never, ever, ever again!! My big regret was nothing to do with my finishing time and more that I hadn’t enjoyed the great experience that the DCM is this time around.

The next few months were summer in New Zealand and I had a great aul’ time, hiking, mountainbiking and really quite enjoying the 5km distance and ParkRun instead, thank you very much. Not even the ghost of a consideration of doing another marathon.

But then! I was at work on 15 February when I had a missed call and message saying ‘Just want to talk to you for a minute’ from my best friend in Ireland. It would have been late night over there at the time and I was still primed for disaster at this point by late night phonecalls: WHO’S DIED?? Even though I was actually chairing a meeting at the time, I made my excuses and left to call her back. ‘Hi!’, she said excitedly, ‘we’re getting married!’. It was only then I realised that it was still in fact Valentine’s Day in Europe. ‘Great!’, I said, ‘great!’. A few weeks later she then asked me to be one of her bridesmaids and they set the date for 16 October.

Right. So I’ll be in Dublin again for October. I think we can all predict what happened next. Actually, I was pretty much peer-pressured and press-ganged into it by my family (none of whom run marathons, I hasten to add). ‘Ah that’s great you’ll be here in October - you’ll be running the marathon again so. Fab - we’ll have a great day out. Great atmosphere in town when the marathon’s on!’. Honestly! It was we were talking about doing a 5km or something: no worries, I’ll just bash a marathon out. But really, I want to exorcise the ghosts from last year and just enjoy it this year. I have no time goals whatsoever, all being well I reckon I’ll chug around somewhere between 4:20 and 4:30 but I really don’t care. I’ve been running four times a week - long run, interval training and two other runs - and haven’t been wearing a watch for any of the sessions, so it is all very ‘free form’ training. Did a hilly beast of a 28km run this morning which was tough and long, but sure, that’s what the long runs are all about.

The main aim of coming home in October is bridesmaiding, and the marathon is just an added bonus (if marathon-running can really be considered a bonus) with the goal being to enjoy DCM for the great event that it is!

skyblue46

earnyourturns wrote: »

Good day to you all from the Southern Hemisphere! (I suppose that should be ‘gidday’, now I think of it.) Thought I’d drop in after some lurking over the past few months and provide my DCM story.

Welcome. That's a great post! Sorry can't add more right now but the Frank Duffy is calling my name!

Halloween Jack

Off to the park now shortly, if you see a balding fella of 6'5'' with a blue tshirt plodding round, chance is it's me;)

Hope everybody flies around and nobody picks up any niggles.

Knock em dead!!

Damo 2k9

What a morning. Gutted I can't make it today, enjoy the race everyone and can't wait to read the race reports!

Wubble Wubble

Beautiful morning for it. Perfect day for a fast race time or a steady session. Have a ball! (and then get cracking on the race reports ðŸ˜)

skyblue46

Halloween Jack wrote: »

Off to the park now shortly, if you see a balding fella of 6'5'' with a blue tshirt plodding round, chance is it's me;)

Hope everybody flies around and nobody picks up any niggles.

Knock em dead!!

I'll be wearing a red Streets of Galway t-shirt until seconds before the start. Then I'll reveal my rippling torso in a vest!!!! Balded as distinct from balding (the top anyway), blue shorts and I wear glasses. Think all that would narrow it down! Best of luck to all.

excitementcity

Best of luck to everyone this morning. See you all there! Lovely morning for it

positron

5400 runners today according to SSE Faceboook page. Cold foggy morning in Drogheda, but beautiful morning in Dublin. A lot of bikes out on the road, everyone making the most of it.

Best of luck everyone.

BrownEyes79

Good luck to everyone today, gorgeous morning for a race!

choons

Good luck all!

Speed van on Chapelizod bypass in case anyone is coming in that way

Testosterscone

choons wrote: »

Good luck all!

Speed van on Chapelizod bypass in case anyone is coming in that way

Save it for the race, at this hour should only be the warm up

Best of luck folks

beakerjoe

Anyone thinking of earphones should just take them out and soak in the atmosphere, its only awesome. Gopd luck y'all

RolandDeschain

Overall very happy with that. Thought I paced myself very well. Think it's a PB will wait for the official result. Will post a full race report later.

Cheers WW for the course preview. I found it very useful. Forewarned is forearmed.

Now to croker. Hon Mayo!

clickerquicklic

My ankle had been giving me a bit of bother yesterday in work all day (think it was my work boots causing it), iced it last night and it was fine this morning. Got into Phoenix park early met a mate and got chatting ended up skipping the warm up it was warm enough out! Decided I wasn't going to race it but just run a comfortably hard pace for the distance. Really really enjoyed it , I was breathing easy for the first 7 miles , pace was relaxed I could of pushed but just stayed in what I'd call a comfortably hard effort. Mile 8 uphill was my first time breathing a little , kicked a bit for the last 800m or so towards the finish line. Great day , great event crowds excellent , this is what running is all about. It's a first 10 mile race so its a pb 1:07:56 although i'd say that will be a soft pb for another day.
Looking forward to reading the race reports.

BrownEyes79

Woohoo... knocked 7 mins off last years FD, delighted with myself!!! Will do proper report later

Well done clickerquicklic, so envious of your times!

leesider77

Never planned to race this after picking up an injury after the fingal 10km but still very happy overall with the FD as my leg held up well. Not ideal preparation as was away with work all week and only arrived home at 11:45pm last night. Up again at 7 looking for open shops to buy breakfast in - must really get bettter at this. Then ran around like a headless chicken looking for everything I needed. Arrived in good time - got dropped off but noted that for next year if you arrive before 9, there would be no parking issues. Very well organized race - everything was nearby and no real queuing required.

Planned to run it all at 6:45 mins per km but the weather was good with little wind so found myself at around a 6:15 min pace and wasn't pushing myself too much - talked all the way around with my running buddy so think that showed I was comfortable - main aim was to complete it and not hurt my leg so I can keep training.

Think I'm getting used to this hill lark as didn't find any of them too tricky and kept my pace steady on them all.

Finished in 1:43:28 - won't set the world on fire with that time but I did what I set out to do and keeping the main thing the main thing and getting closer to my goal of getting to the DCM start line.

positron

Thoroughly enjoyed that. Beautiful day, beautiful park, and a great event.

I thought I was at the tail end of Wave 2 but turned out that was Wave 3. Anyway, that really worked to my benefit as every was was doing 6m/km pace and there was no major congestion or any issues what so ever. My own plan was to try and stick to 6m/km pace for the entire race and yet see if I can get closer to 90 mins mark somehow (I must be poor at maths).

There was one person walking at after 1k, 3-4 walking after 2k, but generally the field around me wear looking great, moving along nice and steady, and I was constantly overtaking people. Soon I realised I am now doing 5:30m/km and getting faster downhill. It was okay, its downhill after all, and I wasn't uncomfortably fast - you couldn't do that with all the people around you anyway. Uphill wasn't too bad, I guess running around all the hills around Drogheda came to my rescue as I was overtaking even more people there. Caught up an ex work collegue for a chat and then left him behind too. The drag by the zoo, towards Castleknock, couple of waterstops etc were all swift, not many were overtaking me, and I kept steady 6m/km pace. Got a pat on the back and a bit of encouragement from couple of nice Star of the sea runners (thank you) which really gave me a huge boost - I picked pace for the last 5k, and flew downhill, and motored on uphill, again overtaking dozens more in the process - but was overtaken by a few as well I have to admit. I didn't have much left for the final sprint, but came thru "tired not wrecked".

Official time around 1h 32m, missed my 90 mins by 2 mins but doesnt matter, ran 5:40 average, 20 second better than planned. Delighted that I am able to put to practice the amazing advice I am taking from here (three months ago, I wound have crashed and burned around 5k mark).

Love the goodie bag, love the park, nothing to complain about. I hope you all had a decent run, I see some Speedy Gonzales' times on Strava.. looking fwd to reports.

Halloween Jack

Had never done the 10 mile before but enjoyed it and will deffo be back (particularly if the half remains in the wilds of ncd ). Brilliantly organised as usual, I went around in 82 mins, had one eye on 79:xx but got boxed in a lot at the start and was well behind by half way. Finished very strongly though so I think I'll be in good shape fur sub 4 come Oct.

Well done to everybody who got round today!

quickbeam

2:01

Disappointed not to get under the 2 hour mark.
Delighted that I finished without stopping to walk, as I was tempted to do at a few occasions.

First half was grand, Military Road and Wellington Road were not nearly as scary as I'd imagined. I got through it in less than an hour so thought I'd be on track to finish within my target. It got intermittently overcast from then on too, which I was grateful for, as it kept things cooler.

Second half was a bit of a slog, especially from about 7 miles onwards. I thought Chesterfield was downhill in that direction? It didn't feel like it. On the plus, I wasn't overwhelmed by people coming out of Furze Road already finished the race like I'd feared (psychologically, it'd have been a bit of a downer to see that). Acres Road was pleasant with a bit of a breeze. Knew it was the last easy stretch so enjoyed it while it lasted. Upper Glen Road was tough, but kept it slow. Passing the top of Furry Glen I thought the worst of the hill was behind me, but somehow that last windy bit really seemed to drag, and it was during this stretch that I was most tempted to stop and walk for a bit but checking my watch and seeing I'd just a kilometre to go, I imagined I was just running the last kilometre of my regular Parkrun, which I knew was doable, and pushed on.

I didn't stop for water at the Fingal 10K, but that was a very different race - a lot cooler, and a lot shorter. Today, I was very grateful for the water stops. And thanks to whoever here suggested squeezing the top of the cup to make a lip out of it to drink from - that proved VERY helpful, allowing me to not break my stride while still hydrating.

I had breakfast pre-run this morning and happy to report no adverse effects from not running on empty. But other than that, and the sips at the water stops I didn't have anything else until the run was over. I know for the HM and Marathon I'll have to carry fuel, but I reckoned 16km was short enough that I could do without it. Thanks to Baby75's recipe, I had a nice refreshing orange drink for afterwards. I'd actually frozen it and taken it out of the fridge that morning expecting it to be liquid by the time I got to use it, but it hadn't quite got there yet and was instead a lovely slushy icy deliciousness, which was an unexpected added bonus!

Congrats to everyone else who completed and got great times!

skyblue46

Congratulations to everyone who completed this morning. Some great times on Strava. Well done all.

From my own perspective it was a weird day. I stuck to my plan to do it as a session at PMP but found it a bit bizarre to be doing it. The benefit in running in a crowd made it difficult to stay at PMP (9.09) so it ended up being PMP - 20 secs. On the plus side the training must be paying off as never has 10 miles seemed so easy. Thanks for all the advice so far, without it I'd be miles behind where I am now.

Once again well done Boardsies, great performances all round.

quickbeam

quickbeam wrote: »

And thanks to whoever here suggested squeezing the top of the cup to make a lip out of it to drink from - that proved VERY helpful, allowing me to not break my stride while still hydrating.

Did a search as I thought the adviser deserved the credit. Thanks again Unthought Known!

Unthought Known wrote: »

Congratulations on a great race.
If you squeeze the top of the cup together as soon as you grab it you can almost seal it, then drink through a gap at the corner. It makes a big difference.

Spirogyra

Just slightly over 21 minutes for a 5K last night. As fast as I've ever been. Marathon training hasn't slowed me down. It's made me more focused and fitter overall.

Halloween Jack

quickbeam wrote: »

Did a search as I thought the adviser deserved the credit. Thanks again Unthought Known!

Wish I had known about this beforehand! Found the cups a massive pain in the arse and trying to drink from them made me more breathless than if I hadn't bothered!

I think it's bottled water from here on in though?

quickbeam

Halloween Jack wrote: »

I think it's bottled water from here on in though?

I believe so.

thunderdog

Tough day at the office, not a fan of the sun on a race day. Can't handle the heat. Original aim was 78 mins, but around mile 4 I knew that was not going to happen so packed in keeping an eye on my watch and just ran with the pack from there on. Did it in 81 mins just about.

I thought the wave system worked very well this year. Did they gave each wave more physical space? It wasn't too crowded at the start which was good. You could hit your target pace from the start I found.

I decided to walk at each water station (a first) so I could get water on board properly. Hard to get the water in from the cups while running.

Congrats to everyone who ran the race today. Hoping for an overcast day in both the half and full marathon!

scotindublin

Some great reports and times coming in....if you have not done so yet don't be shy to share how today went.

Also remember that not all runs are going to go well; you will learn more on the days when things don't go quite to plan. Look back and review what went well and what do you think you can improve on.

This is just another step towards the main goal of feeling you are going to get when you cross that finish line at the end of October.

heebusjeebus

Nice to read all the reports here, especially around the heat.
I found the heat very tough.Jogged up through Chesterfield avenue to the start line and I was sweating heavily before the race!
Needed water at each station, except the lucozade one.

I decided this morning to race it, and try and run it faster than my PMP.
Thankfully I finished 3 minutes faster than when I ran it in 2015.

Found the first 5 miles easy going. The various drags and hills around the end were not as bad as I remembered. I managed to power through the last km.

My sister took a photo of me at the end, and I'm in full flight with a beaming smile!

I've no aches or pains thankfully. I've a quick turnaround now to my 19 mile LSR on Thursday. Planning on a recovery run tomorrow and just a single easy run on Tuesday.

RolandDeschain

Jesus, I would run another 10 miles after that. Tomorrow's recovery run is being replaced by recovery pints!

Omeceron

First 10 Miler. Aim was sub 1:30. Finished in 1:29:45. Happy enough. It was hard earned.

ariana`

Funny day for me in the end. After battling with a head cold all week i had decided I was still gonna race the 10m as it was my only chance of a pre-marathon race and i thought I was winning the battle.

However, during my warm up i noticed I was sweating buckets and my heart rate was hitting 185 bmp without even doing strides, just plodding at 7:15min/km I decided there and then to down grade this to a pmp session

Started off and for the 1st 5km my HR was still high despite staying close to pmp. However, around the half way mark I started to notice that the HR had dropped a bit, I was picking up the pace slightly and reeling the odd person in, certainly no one had passed me since the 1st mile.

From there, I kept with the slightly quicker pace as I was feeling fairly comfortable. I passed the odd person which was nice.

I ended up finishing in 1:30:50 with a negative split and honestly delighted with that given everything.

There was great support on the course too, 3 water stations and 1 with jellies which were a welcome treat!

Also I found it very reassuring afterwards, I got talking to a twice dublin marathon finisher who said that the hills today were a lot tougher than DCM

Well done to everybody who ran today I have a beer chilling for once the kids are in bed so cheers everyone