Marlboro Lights, Pitbull and somehow I still finished
There’s something unnerving about admitting your first marathon was in 2011. Fourteen years ago. Back when people still bought CDs, brought printed boarding passes to the airport, and smoked actual cigarettes without shame. That’s where I was. Living in Kilmacow, running off pure blind enthusiasm, and listening to LMFAO and David Guetta like they were prophets. I was in my early to mid twenties (ok fine, my mid twenties), still young enough to treat running like a hobby and cigarette smoking like a personality trait.
Training, If You Can Call It That
I’d gotten into running about a year and a half earlier as a way to distract myself from a bad break up, not completely clueless, but not exactly enlightened either. I had one of my best mates from the Midlands to run races with, which made it easy to stay active, but I ran the way most twenty-somethings do, often, but never smart. In the spring of 2011 I ran in a plethora of races like the Omagh Half Marathon, the Craughwell 10 Mile and the National Half in Waterford that September. That one, I remember, I ran in 1:54. Not bad. Not planned either. I didn’t do intervals or tempo runs. I didn’t taper. I didn’t even stretch, come to think of it. I just ran. Some days I did four miles, some days six. Occasionally I’d do a long one, but I had no idea why or what it was for. I was half-fit and fully confident.
I also smoked 20 cigarettes a day, Marlboro Lights, naturally, and went out nearly every weekend. Not in a civilised pint after work way. I’m talking Coppers. Full club nights. Dodgy strobe lights. Olympic level fashion cringe. Party Rock Anthem. At that age, you could get absolutely slaughtered on a Saturday and still run 10K on Sunday, hungover, dehydrated, but powered by Lucozade Orange and completely unearned confidence.
Couch Surfing and Cringe Playlists
The night before the marathon I crashed on a friend’s couch in Dublin. Not ideal race prep for your first ever marathon. But I didn’t drink, which for 2011 Phil, counted as high performance discipline. I wore a Dublin Race Series five-miler t-shirt, anonymous black shorts with deep pockets for my wired headphones, and an mp3 player full of pure aural war crimes. My race day playlist was a parade of 2011 floorfillers: Flo Rida, Swedish House Mafia, Pitbull, Rihanna, David Guetta. It was like running 26 miles through the smoking area of a nightclub.
Race morning was typical for Dublin, overcast, humid, not quite raining but definitely thinking about it. I remember Run Republic founder Paddy Ryan told me, “You won’t feel the first half.” At the time, I thought that was nonsense. But he was right. You really don’t. You’re so fixated on the 26.2 looming ahead that 13.1 feels like a casual trot. Somewhere around Chapelizod I remember a kind soul handing out jelly babies. I didn’t hesitate. Took a few, kept going, wondering if I’d still be alive at mile twenty.
Drenched, Broken, but Somehow Still Standing
As the race progressed, I was buzzing on adrenalineI was buzzing on adrenaline, happy enough, and ticking the miles off without much trouble. I think I started to wobble a bit around Milltown, if memory serves me right, but even Roebuck Hill didn’t flatten me as badly as I’d feared. By the time I went past RTÉ and dropped down Nutley Lane, I was still feeling reasonably confident. Then, for some reason, everything just collapsed on the way back in. Hitting Merrion Road was like walking straight into the gates of hell. The rain started spitting at first, then turned heavier and heavier, and no amount of support from the crowds could drag me out of it. My legs felt like they were hauling blocks of wet cement, and every step was torture. I don’t even know if it was the last three, four, or five miles, it was all a blur, but it was nothing short of hell. At some point, the sky finally made up its mind and dumped every ounce of rain it had been threatening all morning. Not drizzle. Not light showers. Biblical rain. Pissing it down rain. Irish summer wedding rain. My t-shirt had turned into a wet sack. I could feel the chafing and the misery building in equal measure as I rounded College Green in the last stretch. But the finish line came, it nearly felt like anti climax in a way, but I did it.
I didn’t cry, or collapse, or soil myself, though all three seemed plausible. I just wanted to lie down and stop existing for a bit. My Midlands friend walked it off like he’d just done a local 5K. I, on the other hand, was an actual broken man. No cool down. No victory fist pumps. Just me shuffling out of the finishing area like a damp Victorian orphan, completely unable to feel my legs.
And then, twenty minutes after the finish line, I lit a cigarette. Of course I did. Got a few looks, sure, but this was pre vape. People still smoked near start lines and finish lines back then. It was a different time. A worse time. A glorious time some might argue.
What Recovery Looked Like in 2011
Despite everything, I finished. And finishing felt unreal. I’d just completed my first marathon. I got my medal. Had my photo taken. Felt like I'd achieved something life altering and physically impossible. Then with my friend I limped my way to the Camden Court Hotel, which, in what now seems like fiction, cost €80 for two of us, had a jacuzzi, and served as both recovery zone and Halloween pre drinks venue. Because yes, it was October 31st, and I had plans.
That night, I dressed up as a Roman centurion. Don’t ask. My mates, many of whom I’m still close with, joined the madness. We went out to Coppers. Of course we did. I had just run a marathon, and the natural way to follow that up in 2011 was pints, a plastic sword, and a nightclub that smelled like Lynx Africa.
A Different Time, A Different Body
The next day was carnage. The mix of post marathon DOMS, a hangover, 40 cigarettes and the post Coppers kebab/garlic cheese chip from the Harcourt Diner the night before left me feeling like I’d been hit by a bus , revered on and then mocked by its passengers. But I wouldn’t change it. I went on to do the marathon again in 2012, and a good few times since, eleven total, with number twelve coming up. These days, I’ll be getting the train back to Belfast after the race, eating something half decent, and watching Netflix in silence with my legs up. There’ll be no centurion outfit. No Coppers. No Marlboro Lights. No kebabs. But definitely jelly babies.
Was it a cautionary tale? Maybe. But it was also just the story of its time, when we were young, dumb, semi fit, and thought Pitbull was good running music. I finished in 4 hours, 51 minutes and 51 seconds, which feels exactly right for everything I’ve just described. No regrets. Just rain, cheap hotel rooms, and a stubborn desire to prove something to absolutely no one.
And honestly, I’m glad I ran it exactly the way I did. Just don’t ask me to do it again.
