Surprisingly solid

Taking the finish area down as I'm rounding the final corner is just plain mean but more on that later.

Just over a month after the 10 miler I took my place amongst the participants in the Adidas Dublin Half Marathon. Sadly my STIG for CF Ireland comrades were missing on the morning of Saturday the 22nd of September for very different reasons.

Gareth Murphy literally stabbed himself in the foot. Dr Murphy, as he would like to be known, managed to step on the buckle of his shiny new belt whilst getting out of bed the day before the race thus ruling him out. Having injured his foot more seriously earlier in the summer, with a similar ankle injury to mine though in less dramatic circumstances, Gareth is now highly doubtful for the marathon.

Clay pigeon shooting was John Craddock's feeble excuse. Admittedly it was part of a stag do but still! John Healy, our web-guru who won't be doing the full marathon this year, had signalled his unavailability well in advance and shan't be mocked here.

As for the race itself well I was quite pleased with my performance though very annoyed by the stewarding for once. I managed to nearly get lost twice.

As I approached a T-junction where the course crossed over itself I asked a steward, who was directing the leaders (I was just past the 3 mile mark, they were approaching 9 miles) which way I turned. He said to go straight ahead. Thanks, thanks a lot. Luckily a local then pointed me the right way. Second time round was as I approached the 8 mile point which was also near the final bend for the finish (trust me the course made sense despite these odd measurements).

The stewards were nowhere to be found as a load of other runners said to keep going as I only had a "few more yards to go". Maybe for you folks but I'd another 5 miles left. I nearly had to take the final bend just to find a steward before eventually being redirected.

Around an hour and a half later I was back in the same area, this time coming around the final bend only to see the construction they had for finishing being taken down. They normally keep those things up until the bitter end and I could see a fair few people behind me yet to finish.

Still I was happy enough with my time of 3 hours 15 minutes and 54 seconds. It was just under a minute over the target I had set and not bad considering I did no training between the 10 miler and this race. Rather irritatingly the guys organising the race couldn’t read my handwriting and attributed the time to an Emma Ryan.

If everything's worked out right you should be able to see a 'post-race interview' video above this.

Emmet Ryan