What a day today was. It started in the Fitzwilliam hotel at 7am for a nice breakfast in St Stephens Green. The hotel was buzzing with all the would be marathoners eating their porridge, toast, eggs and getting fuelled up for the challenge ahead. It was great to see a lot of children running around with smiles on their faces. I wasn't to know at that time but this set the template for the rest of the day.
At 8am my running buddy Gerard called for me and both of us headed over to the starting line for what was going to be my 3rd marathon in 3 years. As we mozied through the thousands of runners to take our position, I was feeling relatively calm, and looking forward to getting going. The starting gun sounded and off we went. Right from the start, the people from across the country and lots of Dubs in their thousands, lined the streets the whole of the 26.2 miles. For those of you who have ran a marathon before, the crowd is a very important element to keeping your spirits high and really driving you on when you are on the floor. Well fair play to them all, as they roared their hearts out and clapped us the whole route. The amount of children who watched on was incredible, many handing out sweets, drinks and oranges - remarkable effort.
The first 10 miles were good as we settled into 8.30 minute mile pace. G-Mo (as many know him) and I have been training together most of the year and it was superb to have him alongside me to keep me going. Every mile we ventured into the race we seemed to be passing more people like a hot knife through butter at one point ( sounds good) which was great for the mind set.
Mile 20 came and I started to get a little uncomfortable - in fact, I was busted and the wee green man on my shoulder was telling me to slow down, to stop and basically taking the piss out of me for even running at all. However the other boy on my other shoulder was telling me to drive on, put one foot in front of the other and to never give up. That's what I did. Mile 22 came and went and my legs were starting to ache, but we continued on with the run as we were very close to home.
Today I was hoping to achieve a new personal best as my last marathon in New York last year, was an unofficial 3.59minutes. At the rate we were moving we were on track to smash this, with only one problem, the pain was starting to intensify.... really intensify As I put the head down and banged the last of the six gels into me, I started to get a little dizzy, but there was absolutely no chance I was going to stop. However I was slowing a little and as we hit mile 24 we were now down to 9 minute miles and it was at that point I told G-Mo to go on and I would see him at the finish. Like the proper champ he is, he was having none of it, so I got my focus back, put one foot in front of the other, clenched my teeth and every other part of my body that was still alive and drove hard for home.
As we ran around the back of Trinity College the crowd were tremendous with their encouragement, lifted everyone of us and spiritually carried us all over the line, a few hundred metres up. It was over and at 3:53minutes, I had achieved a new personal best, which was a tremendous feeling for me.
Smiles everywhere, wrecked bodies everywhere, pain everywhere, but you know what - that's what life is about yeah. Challenging your mind set, challenging your bored chemistry, getting out of your comfort zone and raising the bar.
Well I did it and that is the last major challenge in the bag for 2013 - Its been a tough year in lots of ways but a great year in many more ways and physically, I am in the best shape of my life. MS has made me stronger and I am looking forward to working hard and building on the foundations I have set out for myself in 2014.
Finally I would like to thanks the organisers of the event today who had it down to a tee, and again the thousands of supporters who made today a very special day that 15000 of us runners will never forget.
Thank you very much!
Remember all - -- #Attitude Is Everything
Monday 28 October 2013
Sunday 27 October 2013
Dublin Marathon 2013 - Here we go....
This time tomorrow I will be an hour into my 3rd marathon in 3 years, and I am really looking forward to it at this stage. Running a marathon is a terrific challenge to set yourself, and the benefits you get from committing to a challenge of this nature are huge from a health and welling perspective.
It requires huge discipline for starters, as if you do not put the work in you wont be able to complete the race. A bit like life ey, if you don't work hard then you will not get as good a return.
From a mental point of view, especially for all virgin marathoners, its a fantastic achievement and an exhilarating feeling to cross the finish line after your first 26.2 miles - a tremendous effort.
In 2011 I ran Belfast marathon and on crossing the finish line, it was one of the greatest feelings of my life. Everyone has their own reasons for doing challenges, and for me in 2011 it was to prove to myself that even with Multiple Sclerosis, I can still challenge my body and be competitive. Getting my medal gave me huge confidence in myself, which set the foundations at that time for me to embrace a new more positive approach to my condition and also my life in general.
This year I have completed a number of firsts, my first 67km adventure race in Donegal (brutal) my first triathlons (Derry & Belfast) and welcoming my first son into the world - by far the best of all. Tomorrow I will do another first which will be completing the Dublin marathon and its a terrific feeling the day before the race.
For anyone following my journey, exercise has been a huge weapon in my fight against MS and the more I drill into it and research it, I am passionate and profound in my thinking regarding the fact that we all need to embrace exercise and better still the odd challenge now and again. Its all about challenging yourself, getting out of your comfort zone, working hard to maintain your health, work hard to reach your goals - and embrace a real positive plan to health and fulfilment.
I am way short of achieving all of this, but day at a time, I will keep moving forward in a positive direction.
Remember all #Attitude Is Everything
It requires huge discipline for starters, as if you do not put the work in you wont be able to complete the race. A bit like life ey, if you don't work hard then you will not get as good a return.
From a mental point of view, especially for all virgin marathoners, its a fantastic achievement and an exhilarating feeling to cross the finish line after your first 26.2 miles - a tremendous effort.
In 2011 I ran Belfast marathon and on crossing the finish line, it was one of the greatest feelings of my life. Everyone has their own reasons for doing challenges, and for me in 2011 it was to prove to myself that even with Multiple Sclerosis, I can still challenge my body and be competitive. Getting my medal gave me huge confidence in myself, which set the foundations at that time for me to embrace a new more positive approach to my condition and also my life in general.
This year I have completed a number of firsts, my first 67km adventure race in Donegal (brutal) my first triathlons (Derry & Belfast) and welcoming my first son into the world - by far the best of all. Tomorrow I will do another first which will be completing the Dublin marathon and its a terrific feeling the day before the race.
For anyone following my journey, exercise has been a huge weapon in my fight against MS and the more I drill into it and research it, I am passionate and profound in my thinking regarding the fact that we all need to embrace exercise and better still the odd challenge now and again. Its all about challenging yourself, getting out of your comfort zone, working hard to maintain your health, work hard to reach your goals - and embrace a real positive plan to health and fulfilment.
I am way short of achieving all of this, but day at a time, I will keep moving forward in a positive direction.
Remember all #Attitude Is Everything
Saturday 5 October 2013
Marathon Update - Dublin 2013
Last Friday I went into hospital to get a sinus problem sorted out once and for all. It was an overnight stay as I was under general anaesthetic for the operation. One week on I am just glad its over, as it has been a difficult enough week, trying to build my strength up post the operation.
It wouldn't have been too bad if I had have taken a proper rest, but for anyone who runs their own business, that phrase "Time of work" doesn't really exist. On Wednesday I was at meetings all day in Dublin and on Wednesday afternoon I flew to Denmark for a huge Multiple Sclerosis conference that was talking place in Copenhagan. On Thursday I was moderating an event at the conference, where I was part of a panel including two leading world neurologists and another MS Champion patient in MS Jayne Arnold. It was a great experience for me and I was just hoping it would go well and that my nose wouldn't start bleeding mid event as that could have been pretty difficult.
Anyway I got through it in flying colours and flew back to Ireland late Thursday night. On Friday morning I has a pre arranged guest lecture at the University of Ulster to give to the final year real estate group, which again I got through fine and finished up in Hillsborough on Friday afternoon at my surgeons office to get my stitches out of my nose. After that it was onto Belfast and into the office where I met the team and we wrapped up the week by closing up at 5pm. I would say it has been one of my toughest weeks in a long while and my energy levels pretty low and MS symptoms on the increase, but I got through it so am delighted everything has worked out.
My challenge now is that I have been out of my running shoes for over a week and it will be another week before I can put them on again, and the idea is I get one more long run in (20 Miles) and then taper for the last two weeks as Dublin marathon is on the 28th October. Its not the ideal preparation at all, but at this stage its all I can do.
That's the plan anyway so next week I hope to get in the pool and swim every day then get a long run in at the weekend. Every thing is possible and as we are in the last quarter of 2013, I want to make sure I finish this year with a bang.
#Attitude Is Everything
It wouldn't have been too bad if I had have taken a proper rest, but for anyone who runs their own business, that phrase "Time of work" doesn't really exist. On Wednesday I was at meetings all day in Dublin and on Wednesday afternoon I flew to Denmark for a huge Multiple Sclerosis conference that was talking place in Copenhagan. On Thursday I was moderating an event at the conference, where I was part of a panel including two leading world neurologists and another MS Champion patient in MS Jayne Arnold. It was a great experience for me and I was just hoping it would go well and that my nose wouldn't start bleeding mid event as that could have been pretty difficult.
Anyway I got through it in flying colours and flew back to Ireland late Thursday night. On Friday morning I has a pre arranged guest lecture at the University of Ulster to give to the final year real estate group, which again I got through fine and finished up in Hillsborough on Friday afternoon at my surgeons office to get my stitches out of my nose. After that it was onto Belfast and into the office where I met the team and we wrapped up the week by closing up at 5pm. I would say it has been one of my toughest weeks in a long while and my energy levels pretty low and MS symptoms on the increase, but I got through it so am delighted everything has worked out.
My challenge now is that I have been out of my running shoes for over a week and it will be another week before I can put them on again, and the idea is I get one more long run in (20 Miles) and then taper for the last two weeks as Dublin marathon is on the 28th October. Its not the ideal preparation at all, but at this stage its all I can do.
That's the plan anyway so next week I hope to get in the pool and swim every day then get a long run in at the weekend. Every thing is possible and as we are in the last quarter of 2013, I want to make sure I finish this year with a bang.
#Attitude Is Everything
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