The Irish Life Dublin Marathon 2025 - The Why

Inspiration can come from unlikely places.
Running through Crumlin, around the halfway mark of the ILDM 2025, I began to question everything. The wind was picking up, I was soaked through from the rain, and it was starting to get tough. Doubts began to surface. Had I gone out too fast? Could I keep this up for another 13 miles? More fundamentally, why was I putting myself through this?
Most marathoners ask themselves that question multiple times in the lead up to and during the event. The preparation is intense. Interval training sets your lungs on fire. Tempo sessions leave you questioning your goal marathon pace. Long runs leave you fit for nothing for the rest of the day.

Marathon training is exhausting and that’s the point: it’s supposed to be. The best way to prepare to run long and hard on tired legs is to run long and hard on tired legs. If you’re not knackered by the end of your training block then you’re probably not doing it right, and, of course, that’s when you’re most susceptible to whatever viruses are doing the rounds. Even if you are doing it right there’s a good chance that you’ll pick up an injury along the way that will either hamper your plans or scupper them altogether. As a friend said, “I could wallpaper a room with race numbers from marathons I’ve entered but had to miss through illness or injury”.

Making the start line is no guarantee of success. Most experienced marathoners have at some point either ‘hit the wall’ (i.e. being too depleted of glycogen to continue) or ‘blown up’ (run out of gas and jogged the remaining miles at a pedestrian pace). Weather can have a big bearing on the outcome, with wind the main enemy. The hills in the ILDM stress test whatever injuries you are carrying. ‘Heartbreak Hill’, just before Fosters Avenue around mile 22, is where dreams of PBs (personal bests) go to die.

Then there’s the mental element. Marathons occupy a part of your brain that remains active from the moment you enter until you cross the finish line. “Am I doing enough mileage?”. “Should I take a day off?”. “When should I taper?”. The ILDM brings its own unique pressures in this regard. You can do a marathon elsewhere and few outside your immediate running community may hear about it until it’s done. The ILDM hits different. It is the focal point of the running calendar in Ireland. Every runner here gets asked if they are doing it. Those who admit to having entered will be asked “what time are you aiming for?” about a hundred times, each answer adding to the pressure a little (“Fair play, I’ll add you to my tracker”). Everyone knows it if the ILDM goes bad; there’s no place to hide.

Managing all that while trying to deal with the usual professional and personal challenges that life brings is tough. As a veteran once remarked to me, “a marathon is a major physical and psychological commitment”.

All of that explains why, as the panic started to set in in Crumlin, I asked myself again “why am I doing this?”.

Then I saw her. An elderly woman sitting on the wall outside her redbrick house on the ILDM route. She was huddled beneath an oversized raincoat that was just about doing its job. She had a cigarette in one hand and an Irish flag in the other. She didn’t know me from Adam but I guess she must have seen something in my strained expression as I approached. Raising both fag and flag above her head, she roared ‘Go on, ya’ good thing!’ in a gravelly Northside accent. I couldn’t help but smile and give her the thumbs up as I passed.

A smile can make a big difference when you’re under pressure. My shoulders relaxed, I told myself that I was lucky to be there and I remembered to just run the mile I was in.
I smiled a lot for the remainder of the ILDM 2025, for different reasons.

Sometimes it was the hilarious signs held up by the supporters:
“Toenails are overrated. Keep going”
“PB+U = PUB”
Or, my personal favourite:
“Pain is just French for bread.”

Sometimes it was the support from my fellow runners. In shorter events, we race each other. In the ILDM, we race the course. Your former competitors become comrades. The fear of the wall, blowing up or a DNF (did not finish) unites us. Runners who don’t know each other will share drinks they pick up along the way. Those who are struggling will receive words of encouragement from those who overtake them. At around mile 15 I got chatting to Mark from Terenure. We’d never met before but found ourselves running stride for stride. We were soulmates who shared our suffering for about 4 miles. He was battling plantar fasciitis and I was battling self-doubt. We got separated in Milltown but not before he introduced me to one of his clubmates: “Meet my new friend from Crusaders!”

Other times it was the support from my family and friends, including the crews from Poolbeg Parkrun and Crusaders AC, who were dotted all over the course. Some of them had also intended to run the ILDM but fell victim to illness or injury in the lead up. A few even popped up in multiple parts of the course, cycling around like maniacs so they could cheer on as many familiar faces as possible. Others had rushed to the course having spent the earlier part of the morning volunteering at the bag drop. Volunteers are the lifeblood of the ILDM. Every cup or bottle of water is accompanied by words of encouragement that are a fuel of their own.

But what made me smile the most was the support from those who didn’t know me, like the lady in Crumlin. A former intercounty GAA player who ran his first ILDM this year remarked to me that even he had never experienced support like it. Communities turned out in force for all the participants: elite, sub-elite and non-elite, runners and wheelchair athletes alike. Cacophonies of encouragement erupted as we passed through crowds three and four deep in Stoneybatter, Castleknock, Chapelizod, Inchicore, Kilmainham, Dolphin’s Barn, Crumlin, Terenure, Rathgar, and Clonskeagh. Then came the wall of sound when we summited ‘Heartbreak Hill’ as our legs screamed “stop”.

These supporters and volunteers make the ILDM what it is. They are Dublin at its best. They are the reason you don’t stop, the wave that carries you home.

They are the Why.

Thank you.
                                                                                                     ​A finisher, The ILDM 2025