Ciara Fitzpatrick used to think three kilometres was a serious distance.
"I started off doing, like, three k, two k, and I thought, jeez, that's loads. Like, I am wrecked. Reward myself with something."
Four years on she runs her first marathon on the last Sunday in October, for the Irish Road Victims Association, in memory of her father, who was killed in a road collision in 2019.
Her own summary of what changed in between is the best line in the interview.
"My mind would quit before my legs. My mind is the first thing to quit on me."
North Dublin
Ciara is from north Dublin and lives at home with her mother and her younger brother, about a kilometre from the coast road.
She is one of four. Darren is the eldest, then Ellen, then Ciara, then Danny, and there are nieces and nephews on top of that.
She works at Beaumont Hospital, on her feet all day, and alongside the running she does adult dance classes and Pilates, when marathon training leaves room for it.
"Training for the marathon, I feel like I've been flat out, so I kind of need more Pilates classes."
Her Dad
Ciara's father had spent about four weeks in Beaumont in the summer of 2019 and had only been out about a week.
On a Friday morning, at nine o'clock, he was crossing a main road near home when he was hit by a motorbike.
"It was a lovely day."
Ciara was 22, working at Jump Zone and about to go into her final year of college. Her mother had dropped her to work that morning.
"It's so funny. Everyone's always thinking, Jesus, seven years, you'd have forgotten. I remember that day so vividly. Every single part of it."
What followed was an education nobody wants.
"With road deaths and collisions, there's a lot that goes into that. I actually didn't know before."
There was a forensic collision investigator. There was a family liaison garda, who she describes as lovely. And there was an inquest, which COVID pushed out again and again.
"2020 was obviously when lockdown happened. So it was a lot of waiting, and a lot of being postponed. It was probably 2021 before we even got to have an inquest."
"That was such a hard few years. Really hard few years."
She did not think she would finish college. The college told her to take whatever time she needed. She had counselling afterwards.
And the thing that has stayed with her since is how differently she hears the news now.
"I listen to the news every day. It's on the radio at work, and I hear a road accident, and I hear, oh, they've been appointed a liaison with the family."
"And I'm just thinking, Jesus, that road for them now is awful."
"I think I relate to it a bit more."
"He Hated Fuss"
Ask Ciara about her father and she brightens up completely.
"He was a funny man. He was an interesting character himself."
He played hurling for his club for years and he walked everywhere.
"If he could walk to it, he'd be like, I'm not getting a bus and I'm not cycling."
She found out recently, from her mother, that he had been a runner too.
"I was like, I didn't know if Dad ever ran. She's like, yeah, he was a runner. I was like, I should know that."
He wrote things down, which is the part she has kept.
"He used to always leave you a note, or a card, and he'd always sign off. His handwriting was gorgeous."
"All the little notes he ever wrote, I have them all, in a card or birthday cards. People are always like, oh, keeping the cards. I'm like, you never know. The handwriting is amazing."
She and her siblings have half-joked about having it tattooed.
Saturday mornings were his.
"He'd bring us out for breakfast on a Saturday."
For his fiftieth they met up in a local place and brought a balloon, which he had specifically asked nobody to do.
"He hated fuss. He'd be very low-key. Don't bring balloons."
"We brought a big balloon, of course, and he was mortified. He's like, put that back in the bag."
"But he loved it. I know deep down he loved it. He loved the fuss. And even if it was just us, it didn't have to be much. It could be a cup of tea. He just loved being there, chatting with you."
She can see him in her brothers now, as they all get older.
Why the Irish Road Victims Association
Ciara had her marathon place before she had a charity, and the choice came from something the organisation had already done for her family.
A woman called Donna there gave her mother advice ahead of the inquest, and the association handled it.
"They offer legal advice and can help with inquests, and that's what we had. They did the inquest."
What sold her on it beyond that was the breadth of what they do.
"They help people who have been impacted, and people who have lost people. They offer so much for families, for peers."
"They have a text and call line they can ring whenever, seven days a week."
She is running in their shirt, which Donna sent on.
From 3K to 30K
The running started by watching. Her sister and her sister's boyfriend were training for a marathon, and Ciara started tagging along to parkruns.
Then it was a 10k, which at the time felt exactly like the marathon feels now.
"It felt like the biggest thing ever."
Then the mini marathon. Then her first half, and the realisation that she actually wanted this.
"Once I got past 10k, 11k, every time I loved it. I was like, this is great. The feeling after one is great. The sense of, oh, I actually can do that."
She has kept something in the diary ever since, roughly one every couple of months, and she rates the Clontarf half as the hardest thing she has ever done.
"Still to this day, I don't think I've run that hard on that coast road."
She entered the Dublin ballot last year fully expecting nothing.
"I was like, I'm not getting that. And I got the email. I was like, oh gosh. Am I in for this?"
Sixteen Weeks, Three Days a Week
Ciara trains on her own, off a plan. Monday, Wednesday, and a long run at the weekend, fitted around a job that already has her on her feet all day.
"I'd be on my feet all day. The hardest part was finding the energy. Getting into bed really early the night before, being up early for work, having a hectic day, and then going back out."
She is strict about the preparation that makes it possible, down to laying her clothes out the night before.
She has worked out her routes and has strong opinions about them.
"I did lots of Malahide Park recently, and I came out and said to my boyfriend, don't ever ask me to go for a walk there again. I never want to see that park again."
Now it is out and back along the coast, which suits her.
"Run out, hit it, turn around, come back."
She is honest that none of it has been easy.
"I found training really hard. Once the mileage started going up, it was really tough. Like 30k on a Sunday. You think, Jesus, how do I do this?"
"And then I'd always do it. I'd feel tired, but I'd feel great after as well."
There was one scare, in July, after a speed session, when her ankle flared up badly enough that she thought she had broken it. The physio at work told her it was irritation, she took two weeks off, and it settled.
"Every week I wake up with a new, oh, my calf hurts. So I'm kind of panicking, thinking, just get me to next Sunday."
Her reward stop on the coast road has become a running joke with the man who serves her.
"I've often stopped at the Circle K on the coast road, and the guy must have recognised me, because the last one he was like, so how many have you had today? I was like, this is my last one. You'll see me for a while after this marathon."
Gels, Dioralyte and Marshmallows
Fuelling is gels, Dioralyte and mostly water, after she found Lucozade too heavy for her stomach. The odd square bar goes in too.
And once, mid-run, she stopped for marshmallows.
"They weren't even that good. I think I just could swallow them. It wasn't going to make me sick."
She has trained with the gels long enough to know what works now, and when to take them.
The other things she has learned over sixteen weeks are the ones nobody tells you.
"Gels bursting on me. My underarms rubbing. Chafing, putting Vaseline on. It's the most random things that I didn't know."
"But it's all learning."
Wave One, by Accident
Ciara started this block hoping for four and a half hours. She has let that go.
"At this rate, I don't even want to put a time on it, because I'm so happy to be doing it anyway. To get across the line."
She is, through some mystery of the entry form, in wave one.
"Don't ask me how I got into wave one. Everyone keeps telling me, just don't go off with the fast ones. I'm watching my pace. I'll go as slow as I can."
She is relaxed about being passed.
"If they're flying past me, I'm like, happy days. More room for me."
Her mother will be there, along with her mother's partner Al, her brothers and sister, and friends meeting her at the finish. Her boyfriend is running it too, in wave two, and will be long finished before her.
There is a drink planned afterwards, somewhere near the end of the course.
"I'm Still Showing Up for Myself"
Asked what she would say to somebody who has not started, Ciara gives the version of it she has clearly been saying to herself on long runs.
"My mind wants to give up so many times, and I talk to myself. I'm like, you actually are stronger than you think. Your body is well capable."
She also describes the pressure she put on herself at the start, and then took back off.
"At the start, I'm going to do it in this many hours, this many hours. And then I thought, why am I putting pressure on myself? It's for fun as well. I'm raising money."
"Believe that you can do it. Because there was a time where I thought I couldn't run 5k, couldn't run 10k. And now I'm running 30k."
"I'm probably not the fastest person in the marathon, but I'm still doing it. I'm still showing up for myself. I'm showing up every week, weeks that I don't feel like doing it."
The Cards
Ciara has already thought about the finish line, and she has a plan for the week before it.
She is going to go and dig out some of her father's notes.
"I think I passed my first year of college, so he wrote a note. He put it on the front of a box of chocolates, but I kept the note."
"He's always saying, you could do anything. Once you say you could do it, you're stronger than you think."
She knows exactly where he would have been on the day.
"If he was here, he'd be the first person in there watching. He'd probably walk the length of it. He'd be on the sidelines at about four different places."
As for how she expects to feel coming down the last stretch, she has given it some thought and landed somewhere honest.
"I'd say I'll probably cry."
"I think I'll be just proud. And I think he'll be proud as well."
"I think I'll be happy crying."
You can support Ciara's fundraising for the Irish Road Victims Association ahead of the Dublin Marathon here.
