Dublin Rock N Roll Half Marathon 2019
Ever had one of those drunken conversations where a plan takes on a life of its own and with every round of drinks it escalates into something much greater? That's how we ended up in Dublin with 4 friends enjoying a wonderful long weekend of Irish hospitality and one of the most fun races I've done.
My girfriend and I decided to book a trip to do a race somewhere relatively close. We’d heard the Rock N Roll series of races were really good fun so we looked into them and decided that as Vegas was a bit too far to travel for a weekend, Dublin would be the one for us. We entered really early to avoid any disappointments when it came to securing a place.
Fast forwad a month or two to a bar in Cardiff after a Wales versus Scotland rugby match. The conversation got around to holidays and we mentioned that we'd booked to go and do the race in Dublin. After the usual comments along the lines of "You pair are nuts!" and "Why can't you just go somewhere and relax?", the questioning turned to actual running of the race and what training we'd be doing for it. Within a few rounds our 4 friends were determined to not only accompany us to Dublin, but 3 of them were going to train to run the Half Marathon too!
Not only was this quite a surprise as none of them were runners, but amazingly, all of them made it through the training and finished the race too.
The race runs through the streets of Dublin on closed roads before the last few miles takes you into parklands for the finish. The atmosphere and support was a little quiet early on in the race, probably due to the early Sunday morning start time. But, by the end there was much more support and the finishing area was absolutely bouncing!
The route takes you past a number of live music acts so there's always something going on to keep your mind off the miles ahead. There was good variety too, with an assortment of bands, DJ's, singers etc. By the time we got to the finishing area there were thousands of runners and supporters enjoying the carnival atmosphere and there was more live music here too. You could also take your finishers medal to be engraved, buy race merchandise, purchase food & snacks if the ones in the finishers goody bag weren't to your liking, and even get a beer!
The whole event was really well run and the marshalls and water stations were plentiful and all excellent. The organisers are obviously experts at what they do as it was a very slick operation from start to finish. The only noticeable problem I spotted was the lack of toilets at the start, but that's pretty much par for the course for all big races.
We had an absolute blast in Dublin that weekend. Doing a race with friends is always special, but making the journey to Dublin and the post race celebrations (that went on for 2 days!) will be a cherished memory for a long time.
I'd definitely recommend this race and Dublin as a fantastic city-break destination too. You just have to make sure you don't get carried away on the Guinness before the big race! There's plenty of time for that after you've crossed the finish line.
