Dublin Marathon 2024 — Ronald Binion

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Dublin Marathon-

It was never a specific plan to run three marathons in less than 30 days. Many articles and books on running will emphasize recovery and talk about the enormous impact that running a marathon has on the body and they recommend only doing two marathons a year, one in the Fall and one in the Spring.

The schedule of running three marathons came about by circumstances. Back in 2023 I wanted to run the Dublin Marathon as my first international marathon, mostly as a good reason to visit Ireland again.

As most marathon runners know it is not easy to get into major marathons due to their popularity and the lottery selection process. I apply for certain marathons just out of habit expecting to not make it into the lottery. But in 2023 I got into the Chicago Marathon which is in early October. I thought it was ambitous to run Chicago in early October and Dublin at the end of Chicago, but those plans were scrubbed because of a sudden random but severe health issue that I experienced in September and required months of recovery.

So I deferred both marathons to 2024 hoping my health would improve and I would be in shape to run both marathons.

Then I was accepted in the Berlin Marathon.

I could not say no to Berlin. That was just too exciting, but this now meant doing three races with only two weeks between each race.

It would be easy for any person to have the thought that if you can do a marathon once, then it shouldn’t be so hard to just do it again. It’s a fun thought, but it greatly trivializes the reality of all of the ways the body needs to perform, recover, and stay healthy.

My number one goal for running is to enjoy running without injuries and be able to rely on it as a way to stay healthy mentally and physically. I am not competing for faster times or any athletic bragging rights.

It’s one thing to think about the possibility of running three marathons in a short amount of time and it’s quite another to be facing that reality and really making sure that I can do it safely, and smartly. Also, there were going to be new challenges to face such as traveling that distance and still being able to manage all of my pre-race preparations. When I ran the Berlin marathon I was really struggling with the mental fatique caused by jet-lag and I needed to apply that lesson to my Dublin Marathon. I feel like I overcame the jet lag simply by getting plenty of sleep after I arrived in the country. It is hard when there is the excitment of wanting to go out and see new things in a foreign country, but it was more important to be in my hotel bed, resting and recovering the hours lost in travel.

It is not fair to compare marathons because each one is exciting, challenging, memorable and humbling, but the Dublin Marathon was very different than Chicago and Berlin for one simple reason, it is much smaller in the number of runners.

Berlin was incredible because from the moment I got to Berlin I saw runners everywhere, at the airport, in the restaurants, out on the streets, runners dominate the city for that weekend, which is very exciting and it’s easy to get a thrill feeling like you are part of that, and getting to have chats with runners on every street corner.

Chicago is also a major marathon, though, because of where I was staying downtown I didn’t get the same connection but I still ran into runners at my hotel even one that had done the Dublin Marathon.

But in Dublin, being a smaller marathon, also felt more local and certainly had a more community feel. These were Irish runners pure and simple. This was the big running event for Ireland and that definitely gave it a unique charm. Even the expo had a kind of county fair feel to it.

The expo had an exhibit of photos from previous Dublin Marathons which I really enjoyed and is not something I’ve seen at larger marathons.

But because of my very recent experiences with the Expo in Berlin held at the Tempelhof Airport and the expo in Chicago at the Mcormick Center my emotions were full of edearment for this smaller community marathon expo instead of the overwhelming feeling one gets at the crowded larger city expos.

And yet all of the beats were the same, pick up the bib number and race pack, walk around and look at the vendors, buy a t-shirt to commemorate the event, and then tick that task off the to do list knowing the next big thing is getting ready for race morning.

Dublin Marathon Race Exp

Race Morning

The Marathon