What an achievement.
Earlier this year Her.ie and JOE.ie partnered with SSE Airtricity in the run up to the SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon.
Our own Tara Moran took on the challenge of running on behalf ourselves and our JOE bros, and she has done us proud.
Working with leading Irish marathon runner, Maria McCambridge, she started training five months before the marathon, and what an incredible journey she’s had.
We sat down and had a chat with her about the experience. Check out her inspirational story and advice below…
Her.ie: What motivated you to take on the marathon?
Tara Moran: Who is it that says, when a good opportunity comes along you should take it and figure out how to do it later? Well this was very much one of those moments. I had always wanted to do one, but I didn’t think it was possible to go from couch to marathon in just five months.
It was a massive personal challenge, and at the beginning I had absolutely no idea if it would be possible, particularly as my experience of running pretty much starts and ends at community games level!
My trainer Maria was incredible and gave me an amazing plan. She swore that if I stuck to 20 weeks training, it could be done. So I did it, challenge accepted!
Her.ie: What was your running experience before you started training?
TM: I did one 10K run in Galway a few years ago with a friend. When we started training, I couldn’t run from the car park in Salthill to the end of the Prom. That’s about 500 metres! We built up our fitness levels bit by bit, and I ended up finishing the race in about one hour and 10 minutes!
I got back in to running at the start of the summer and again took on a 10k for JOE.ie with a friend. He had a lot of running experience and agreed to run at my pace to help me through it. He basically dragged me around the phoenix park and ended up binning his race tracker half way around the course because our time was so slow! That gives you an indication of my fitness levels at the start of this!
After that, I ran the Dublin race series, made up of four races in the lead up to the marathon (the 5 mile, 10K, 10 mile and the half marathon), but honestly, the night before each one I genuinely thought ‘How the hell am I going to do this?’
Each race felt like a huge challenge at the time and I was incredibly nervous. Gradually I got fitter and fitter, and with Maria’s training my confidence grew.
Her.ie: What was the biggest challenge you faced over the five months? TM: I think the biggest challenge is when you are putting the work in but are slow to see progress and you start to become negative towards yourself. Whether it was 4 miles on a treadmill or 10 miles on a Sunday in the park, after each run I would be exhausted. It’s hard not to think at that point, “I’ve just run 10 miles, how am I going to run 16 more on top of that?” That’s a very negative attitude to have and it was hard to shake. At the start, my breathing was the biggest obstacle. Mid way, it was the increasing the strength in my legs and learning to persevere through sore muscles and fatigue. By the end, it was all about the mental battle to keep focussed and motivated and stop letting pain or negative thoughts be a barrier. There just comes a point when your body is fit enough but your mind needs to be in the right place. You can’t run a marathon if you don’t have the right attitude. That was my biggest learning and the most thing I took from this whole experience. Long distance running is as much about your mind-set as it is about your physical fitness.
This week’s training schedule nicely slotted around my other racing priorities this week ? #Galway pic.twitter.com/QcinduaT7x — Tara Moran (@tazmorano) July 27, 2015
Her.ie: What advice would you give to someone who wants train for a marathon from scratch?
TM: Training can be a pretty solitary experience, but there is a huge community of runners out there to get know and share experiences with. You’ll meet all kinds of incredible people with amazing stories at the events in the run up to the marathon, as well as on the big day. Ask their advice, there’s lots of good information online but most importantly you have to put the hours in. You have to put the miles in your legs. I was averaging at 40 miles a week towards the end.
Her.ie: What’s the most rewarding thing?
TM: By training for something like a marathon, you realise that most of the things that you think are out of your reach probably aren’t. I’m not naturally good at running, but I guess I’m naturally stubborn and committed! By the time it came to the race day, I couldn’t think of one thing that would stop me from finishing it.
Her.ie: What advice would you give someone who wants to do the marathon next year?
TM: Get a plan, tailor it to suit you and follow it. Take in everyone’s advice and give it your best shot.
Listen to your body. If something is niggling, get it checked out. Don’t put your body at risk, you see people get stretchered off the course all too often. If you are not a seasoned runner, finishing your first marathon upright and healthy should be your only goal. The pressure to finish in a certain time can be too much that you miss the amazing atmosphere on the day.
You have to be committed, but it’s an incredible experience, and you’ll learn that you’re stronger than you think.
For the three weeks before the full marathon, I became obsessed with looking at the race map. At each stage of the course I visualised worst case scenarios, and how I could overcome them to finish the race. The only time I thought of the finish line was 200m out, when I could see it. I had mini goals set along the way and had amazing friends and family lining the streets cheering me on at all the ‘struggle’ points. I think it’s the most focussed I’ve ever been in my life.
Her.ie: How has running the marathon impacted your life?
TM: I definitely put a lot of things on hold while I was training. It takes a lot of sacrifice, whether it’s missing family events or skipping outings with friends. I didn’t see my housemates from one end of the week to another. But it did make me incredibly focused at work.
Now I’m deciding what goal I would like to achieve next year. I’ve always had that mind set professionally but now I’m taking that attitude to my personal life and focussing on getting to a level of fitness I am happy with.
Congrats Taz. We guess now is as a good of a time as any to start the preparation for next year’s event!
