A well deserved pint

I did it! Dublin marathon in the bag and a well-earned first pint of Guinness in Dublin to celebrate!

Well that was incredibly tough. My knee issues did not magically disappear and from about 4 miles in I had pain in my knee constantly. It started off just a little annoying but ended up being very painful and extremely frustrating. I tried to break the run down into smaller chunks, initially just my 5 mile breaks where I had scheduled stretching stops (and 11 miles where Rach was waiting with a hug), but soon I had to break the run down even more. I started breaking it down into quarter of a mile chunks (which sucks when you think there are over 100 quarter miles in a marathon!) but even some of those were tough to will my legs through. Every uphill I walked, every step I felt.

But it was a very rewarding and enjoyable (in hindsight) experience. Yes it hurt like hell. Yes during the race I was wanting to curse the world. But the support was fantastic, the course was beautiful and the reward at the end made all of the pain worthwhile. Not only was there Rachel waiting in the pub but also my first Dublin pint of Guinness. Perfection.

The rest of the day was a lot of laying, bathing, eating and a little drinking. I had a huge burger in Captain America's and whiskey and Guinness in a pub in the Temple Bar area, where a guitarist played live music and made us want to dance and sing. Although the knee didn't allow for much dancing to be honest!