'Running 21km without stopping was the confidence I needed to run a marathon'

I still remember the fear I had going out to do my first 13km run.

Jillian Bolger started running in 2018 and plans to run in the Dublin Marathon this year.

A bad week at work in 2018 saw me clicking on a serendipitous ad for the Dublin Marathon. I’d just lost a lucrative work gig and figured ‘a project’ would cheer me up and make a welcome distraction. 

It took two months before I told anyone, even my husband, and another few months before I began training in earnest.