The Marathon Experience

IT WAS the Jazz weekend in Cork and we were leaving for Dublin with a plastic bag of fruit and bottles of water. We had dodged the obvious questions and feeling good about ourselves.

This was a lifelong dream. I had always wanted to run a marathon. A full marathon. Not a 5k, 10k or even half marathon. The full monty.

Eight months previously in the gym where else? I suggested as much to my friend, Geraldine Barry, a fitness trainer. We agreed to give it a go. Hours of great long runs were going to prepare us for our first marathon experience on the October Bank Holiday Monday. Or that was the theory.