At the top of Merrion Square East there was a kink in the course as it moved onto Holles Street. The huge volume of runners caused a massive traffic jam and everyone slowed to walking pace again. Two American runners behind me thought it was the approach to another start line, but it was just the volume of runners trying to squeeze around the bend. Holles street was on a small descent, which led onto Sandwich Street Upper, then Pearse Street.

One of the most amusing things I can remember was the number of male runners who were “caught short” and had to relieve themselves. Running down Sandwich Street Upper I saw a whole line of runners relieving themselves against a row of garage doors.

The first six miles of the marathon would lead us out of the city centre and into Phoenix Park. Coming to the top of Pearse Street, the route turned onto Westmoreland Street, which took me across the River Liffey, then along O’Connell Street. I ran past the Dublin General Post Office, a landmark in Irish national history for the rebellion against British rule that took place here. I can confirm that the Dublin GPO has no steps.

After we reached the top of O’Connell Street, the route ran around Parnell square and up a light gradient. My hotel was a few hundred yards off to the left as I approached the first mile. Leaving Parnell Square behind, the route turned right and continued to climb up Dorset Street upper, then turned left onto Eccles Street, still continuing on a steady climb up and out of the city centre. I was a little surprised to see more men relieving themselves behind a shopping arcade. There were so many that as soon as one man finished, another man took his place almost instantly.

At this point, approaching my second mile, my pacing was spot-on. The first mile had taken me 12:42 and my second mile about a minute faster at 11:45. I continued at this steady pace for a good few miles. Running down the North Circular Road, towards Phoenix Park, mile three approached faster than I expected. It felt a little strange to be running down a tree-lined leafy suburban street with so many others and I was still trying to settle down into the race. Plenty of other runners were still surging ahead, the pack was still very fluid.

Mile three was significant because it signalled the first water station. Unlike at Edinburgh, where I felt the water stations were irregularly spaced and few and far between, Dublin had one roughly every three miles, which I thought would be more than enough – possibly even too many, but then I was sure I’d be grateful for this in the latter stages, when I would really need it.

Even though I had deliberately not taken on any extra water before the race began because of the frequency of water stations, I didn’t feel really settled enough at this point in the race to be troubled by taking on water. I knew from Edinburgh and from training however, that it is better to take on water before you feel thirsty, because when you start feeling thirsty, it’s already too late to make any difference in this type of race. So I took a bottle onboard. They were very small bottles though, so small that you wouldn’t have thought they would make any difference.

Eventually we reached the top of North Circular Road and the first major change of scenery as we entered Phoenix Park. At first I wasn’t even sure if this was Phoenix Park, because on my left was the business end of Dublin Zoo. I think all the animals must have been still sleeping, because I didn’t spot much activity.

Moving up North Road behind the road I was caught out by the rather subtle mile markers for the first time. I don’t think they were as obvious as they should have been (just notices fastened to lampposts) and I missed the four-mile marker, which meant I wasn’t able to gauge my pace over miles four and five accurately. As the course came around from behind the Zoo to join Chesterfield Avenue, the main road running diagonally through the park, I was becoming more worried about my speed and pace.

I became more and more convinced I was running too fast, even though I was keeping more or less to my target pace of twelve minutes per mile. Erring on the side of caution, I decided to gradually slow myself down. this is much harder than you might expect, as the sight of other runners flying past, the atmosphere of the occasion and a full tank of energy can make it so easy to go too fast in the early stages. For the rest of the Phoenix Park phase of the course, I deliberately aimed for a pace of about a minute slower than my target.

The psychological milestone of the six-mile marker (representing approximately a quarter of the entire distance) felt a long way off. There was nothing much to do though except admire the scenery. Several people were in fancy dress, including a man dressed as a toucan (who was also running with a pint of Guinness). I lost track of him when he darted behind a tree to answer the call of nature. This wasn’t the last time I would see him or the pint of the black stuff, however.

If there’s one thing about Phoenix Park which becomes apparent to you whilst moving through it, it is the huge scale of the place. the park stretched all the way up to the horizon straight ahead of me and off to the left. Running up Chesterfield Avenue at my restrained pace genuinely felt like it was taking a disproportionate amount of time, after the easy miles which were clocked up leaving the city centre. Miles five and six, run in the open surroundings of the park, felt much longer than the ones I’d just completed in the city.

Mile six was also important for another reason: I decided that my energy strategy would be pre-emptive and that I would take an energy gel at the second water station, which was coming up at mile five.

The main reason I did this was mainly motivated by what happened at Edinburgh. I began to tire at around mile ten and despite a second wind which carried me through the early teens, by the time I reached mile sixteen, I was shot and had to take regular walking breaks just to keep going. I took my energy gels fairly late in that race, when my body was already telling me it was running out of energy, but by then it was already too late to avoid hitting the wall, which I did. Hopefully my pre-emptive strategy would help me avoid the same fate this time.

At the official six-mile marker, my timing chip recorded a time of 1:18:28, which was just a little slower than my paceband dictated, but at this point in the race I wasn’t bothered. The slower the better! The route turned left onto Furze Road, which again changed the scenery into more of a forest route. The pack had considerably thinned out now, though as the course wound down Upper Glen Road towards the gate at Chapelizod, hundreds of runners were still passing me. I was surprised at the numbers of runners who continued to pass me, as I thought the main crowd had overtaken me earlier. I deliberately resisted the urge to catch them up, as I believed I was still  burning to much energy by going too fast.

I noticed that it wasn’t just the men who were caught short, as we came out of the wooded area, I noticed several women dart off to my left and crouch behind trees. Naturally I was too much of a gentleman to take any further notice.

At the bottom of Upper Glen Road, the route took us out of Phoenix Park through the Chapelizod Gate. This also marked the eight mile point and, I decided the last mile I would run at this slower pace. With evryone passing by me, I couldn’t help but feel that the race was literally passing me by. One of the things I disliked the most about the Edinburgh Marathon were the long, lonely stretches of road, where the runners at the back of the pack were spaced out, sometimes by hundreds of yards. I didn’t want to run another “lonely” marathon, so I began to speed up to my normal pace again. As the marathon entered populated areas again, I didn’t need to worry about that, as there was a steady supply of supporters along the rest of the distance.

Then the second mile was just as hard. Usually, it gets a little easier, the aches and pains wear off and I can concentrate on running the distance. Not today. It just got harder and harder. I was running my normal route of going round the headland, around the South Bay, back around the headland and along the North Bay and through the parks. When I reached the Sea Life Centre, I almost stopped as I turned around to head towards Peasholm Park, but I knew that if I stopped it would be twice as hard (and painful) to get going again.

So I struggled on, plodding away trying to ignore my aching leg muscles. By the time I was a short distance into the Peasholm Park leg, on the final mile of my route, I gave in and started walking instead. It wasn’t just my legs that were being tortured – my feet were on fire!

From there I walked the rest of the route. As I emerged from Peasholm Glen, I was started by a tremendous BANG! from the other side of the lake. It took me a few moments to realise that it was a television crew who were filming an episode of The Royal.

The exhaustion of this run has once again made my doubt my ability to run the marathon in my target time of 5h30m and rudely reminded me of just how hard and difficult running a marathon is.

I managed my six-mile run on Tuesday, but the fact I was wearing in a new pair of running socks (which are, ironically, supposed to prevent rubbing and blisters) meant new blisters formed over other semi-healed older blisters.

The whole reason I was wearing in some new socks in the first place was because my other trusty pair, which have protected me from the worst of blisters and rubbing since I started wearing them over a year ago now, have finally worn out. This is how I gained my first batch of blisters a couple of days ago.

So, to put an end to this merry-go-round, I’ve reluctantly decided to skip training until my blisters have healed to an acceptable degree. Unfortunately, this does mean that I will fall further behind with my training schedule. So the chances of me reaching my target time appear to be getting more and more remote.

Tuesday was a rest day, then on Wednesday I returned to my pre-illness schedule with a 5-mile run. This was more tiring, but still well within my capability and I only barely broke out into a sweat this time.

On Thursday I completed my longest mid-week run yet, clocking in at 6-miles. This felt noticeably longer, running right around the headland and halfway along the South Bay before turning round and running my usual route around the North Bay. It was much more tiring, but that was probably because I had run another five miles yesterday. Despite all that, Thursday’s run still felt well within my capability.

Also, you may have seen on BBC Breakfast an item about free bus passes for the elderly. Well, the BBC sent one of their reporters to do a live spot on board an open-top bus from the Peasholm Gap turning circle. My route took me past this spot twice and though I didn’t run past when they were broadcasting, I still managed to see the correspondent. I can’t remember his name though. So that was a nice change.

I followed that eleven miles on Wednesday and Thursday with a rest on Friday. On Saturday I completed another six-mile run, which was quite easy. As I reached the Peasholm Park leg of my route, I was stunned to see that the heavy rainfall of the previous night had made the lake burst its banks.  This happens quite often after rainstorms, however, what took me aback this time was that the lake had overflowed so much that it was spilling out onto Burniston Road. It also forced me to make some diversions around the lake to avoid the flooded footpaths.

On Sunday, I went out for my Sunday long run, which today was seven miles. I went out much later this time, which I always try to avoid because the footpaths do get a bit clogged up with people who tend to get to get in my way. The early mornings have been bitingly cold this week, however, this morning was quite mild. Once again I was quite tired by the end of it, but I felt a massive satisfaction at completing the longest run so far in training for this marathon.