Eleonora Lot's colleagues were handing out medals at the LauraLynn race in Dublin when they spotted her in the crowd and gave her one.
She had not run it.
She had run 27 kilometres on the Thursday and was far too sore to go near a start line, so she had come along to cheer on two friends who had signed up, neither of whom are runners.
"I feel so embarrassed. I didn't even run."
About fifteen minutes later, an older woman came up to the table and asked where she could get a medal. They had run out.
So Eleonora took hers off and put it over the woman's head.
"I said, do you know what? This is yours."
"She was, like, the happiest person in the world. My colleagues are probably going to give me one later on anyway. But this lady deserved it a hundred percent more than me. She was probably in her 80s. So I was like, fair play to her."
More than a thousand people took part that day, and Eleonora spent it on the other side of the barrier, which she did not mind in the slightest.
"I felt, oh my god, this is so special, because I showed up for them, and they received the medal. And I didn't run, because I listened to my body."
She also ran into Niamh Fitzpatrick there, an ultrarunner and a friend of hers, who ran the race properly.
The moment Eleonora keeps coming back to from the whole day lasted about ten seconds.
"Sometimes we can just change a small bit of someone else's day, with a small gesture that for them meant more than everything."
On the last Sunday in October she runs her first marathon, for LauraLynn, the children's hospice where she works, alongside her father Paolo, who has flown over from Italy to do it with her.
The Happiness Coordinator
Eleonora has been at LauraLynn eight months. Her official title is activity coordinator. What everyone actually calls her is the happiness coordinator.
"I am very bubbly. I am genuinely very happy all the time."
She came to it from nursing, which is where the instinct comes from.
"Because I'm a nurse by background, I love taking care of people in general, especially children in this case. To me, it's kind of a mission."
And she is clear that the happiness part of the title is a job rather than a description of how she happens to feel on a given morning.
"I go every day into LauraLynn with a smile even though I'm not happy, I have something else going on. When the door is open, I'm like, this is me. I need to do my best today. I need to let them relax, let them smile, see the parents relieved and supported."
Because the other half of the job is the half nobody wants to think about.
"Sometimes it's a tough job, and you need to deal with end of life, and children that can't run. They can't do whatever normal children can do. They are special."
365 Days a Year
Ask Eleonora why anybody should give money to a children's hospice and she talks about the parents.
"It's hard to look after children with life threatening disease, 365 days a year. It's a full time job, and you don't decide that. It just happened, and it could happen to everybody."
Some of the families she works with are single parents doing exactly that on their own.
"I'm like, wow. That's hard."
She also makes the point that nobody is more than one bad day away from needing a place like it.
"You never know in life what happens. Life is so unpredictable. So I feel kind of very close to these families."
"If I found myself in that situation, having a child sick, I would love to have someone, a charity, that supports me in this."
What the job gives her back is the thing she is most surprised by.
"I can't even understand how my heart after work is full of rewarding stuff. I feel like I'm somehow making the difference. Since I was a child I was like, I want to try to change the world."
Then she catches herself, and the correction is the best sentence in the interview.
"I know I can't change the climate. But maybe I can change a little bit in this family. And a little bit could be just a support, just a smile, just organising a birthday party."
Graduation Day
One of the things Eleonora organises is the graduation LauraLynn holds when a child turns 18.
There is a ceremony and a speech. And there is a video, which she makes, of everybody in that child's life cheering for them.
"So it's very, very special."
The next big thing in her work calendar is Lights Up, the Christmas event, and she has only been there long enough to be told what it means rather than to have seen it herself.
"Apparently this event means a lot to the staff, to the organisation, to all the families, and also the families that lost their child."
"Christmas is a very big thing in general. Even if you're not Christian, a lot of people look forward to Christmas. It's something for sharing, for bringing people together."
Beds, and Somewhere Quiet
When Eleonora talks about what the fundraising actually buys, she does not reach for a figure. She reaches for space.
"To improve the care, and maybe to expand LauraLynn, to have more beds, and have more space for the children to have a safe space where they can express themselves in the way they are."
Her example comes from the family camp that was on the weekend of the race.
A magician came in to entertain the children, and most of them loved it. One child could not cope with it at all, because they are very sensitive to noise and to voices.
"So you need to have another place where you can bring those children that are more sensitive. And you need to adapt all the time."
That is what more space means in a children's hospice. Not an extension for the sake of it, but a second room so that one child does not have to be the one who misses out.
The Hard Part
For somebody whose entire job is bringing people together, Eleonora finds the fundraising side of this genuinely uncomfortable.
"It's kind of hard to ask people for money. It's a kind of tricky situation."
What makes it easier is that she is not asking on behalf of a stranger.
"I work for LauraLynn and I put my hands on the fire for that. I trust my company a hundred percent. It's not like I'm running for a charity that nobody knows. There is my name on it. I'm kind of part of all this."
Her strategy, such as it is, is entirely in character.
"Sometimes I go for runs, I put up a funny thing, or a video of me running, and I'm like, come on. Help me."
Proving Something
There are two reasons Eleonora is running this marathon, and the first one is hers alone.
She is careful about how she says it, and she says it without bitterness.
"Everybody sees flowers on Instagram and beautiful things. But the reality is sometimes we grow up in families where you don't receive the support that you need. You receive a kind of support that for them seems right, but for you is not what you need."
"I kind of grew up with the mentality of, you're doing what you need to do. And I never received much compliments."
So the finish line is an argument she is having with all of that.
"To me, this marathon is a way to prove to myself that I can do everything. I'm arriving at the finish line and I'm like, okay, I did that. I accomplished something that I worked hard at, and the result is finishing."
"Proving to myself that I'm enough. That I'm enough."
"Even though sometimes people are saying, oh, you could do better, or you expected something different. Sometimes we just need to prove to ourselves that we are capable, and we are enough."
She also knows herself well enough to know what she is like once she decides on something.
"Sometimes I'm struggling finishing tasks. But when I commit, I commit. I'm a very determined person. When I have something in my mind, nobody, nothing can change my mind."
"You Kinda Did the Marathon"
The second reason is the children, and it is the one she lights up talking about.
"I want to kind of have their legs."
"These children are not able to run, and kicking the balls, or whatever. So I have this privilege of running. Why not run for them? Why not run because of them?"
And then she describes what she intends to hand them afterwards, which is not a medal or a total on a page.
"Kind of say, okay, I did the marathon with you, so you kinda did the marathon. You kinda ran, because I did it for you."
"You need to use a bit of imagination. I feel like I'm pretending to be them."
A Training Block That Did Not Go to Plan
Eleonora is honest about the build, and it has been a mess, through no particular fault of hers.
First she had to stop for a spell and work through a set of physio exercises.
"I could have done probably 30 or 32k, but I didn't go that far."
Then she went on holiday to Madeira, where she discovered that running on a volcanic island in the heat is a different sport entirely.
"I tried my best to run in Madeira, but it's absolutely impossible. The heat, and all the roads that are up and down, it's just very hard."
Her longest run on the island was 8k.
"Which is not bad, but could be better."
Then came Portugal, and the surfing.
"I had a little accident in Portugal where I was surfing, and the board hit me."
That put her in hospital out there. She flew home on the 25th, took sick leave, and could not run for a few days after that.
So the 27k was her last long run, and she is now deliberately taking a full two weeks away from long distances before the race.
She is annoyed about the training she did not get done, and she is also talking herself around it.
"I'm happy now, but I was quite upset, because I didn't do my training properly. You can follow a programme, but at the same time you need to be flexible."
A Little Bit of Lies
The way Eleonora has got through every step up in distance is a mental trick, and she is completely open about the fact that it is a trick.
"I've done 27k, so I have roughly less than 16k to go. And 16k is nothing, because I already did 27."
She has been doing this to herself the whole way up.
"Every time I was putting on more kilometres, I was thinking, okay, I've done my 10k, I have 10k to go, but I already did 10k. So it's fine. It's just 10k."
"So you kinda need to be tricky, and say a little bit of lies to your mind."
Wave Two, Wave Four
Her father Paolo is running Dublin too, and he is the quicker of the two, which has created a small logistical problem that he has solved in the nicest possible way.
He got wave two. She got wave four.
"He's quite afraid, because he's in wave two. Which means people are running there. They're not kidding. They're running."
So he is coming back to wave four.
"He's going to come in wave four with me, and we said we're going to do the whole marathon together. We're trying to keep a pace where we are comfortable. And then if we feel like going faster, we go faster. If not, we keep the pace."
There is one part of his plan she cannot accept at all, which is that he is flying home the day after the race.
"My dad is flying back on the 26th, which is very silly. I said, you are crazy. How can you fly back the day after the marathon?"
She asked him to change the flight. He said he had to get back to work.
There is a pub planned for afterwards. No venue picked yet. Paolo is paying.
"I said, let's go to the pub. My dad is going to pay."
Her mother is hoping to come over, friends are coming, and a few of her colleagues are coming. She is off on the Sunday and back in to LauraLynn a couple of days later.
"I'm going to wear the medal. That's definitely happening."
"Nothing Is Impossible"
Ask Eleonora for advice for anyone thinking about a first race and the answer comes fast.
"Nothing is impossible. First, nothing is impossible. Your mind is flexible if you want to. I always say, just try and do it."
Her argument for it is not about fitness or weight or times. It is about what a run does to a bad day.
"After work sometimes I went for 15k, and it's something that completely changes your mood. Even when you finish it, you're feeling so good, and all your problems are gone. It's kind of a reset."
She is not going to pretend any of it is easy, and she has a comparison ready.
"It's tough. It's not easy. But is anything easy? A lot of sport. Even surfing. Surfing is horrible. Takes a lot of effort."
And she makes the case for doing one race, once, even for people who will never become runners.
"I know running is not for everybody. But doing a race once in a life is something that gives you more confidence, and more self awareness of your body and your mind, and what they can do if you allow them to work."
The last part of her advice is the thing she practised herself the weekend she gave her medal away.
"You need to feel your body. Your body will tell you."
Not Real Yet
With a fortnight to go, 26.2 miles had still not landed with her.
"I'm kind of excited. Doing this big thing is something that, I don't know. I feel like it's not real at the moment."
Her whole approach to it is the opposite of the way most people arrive at a first marathon.
"That's the point. Your mindset has to be set in a way that you're not comparing yourself to the others, because sometimes that's the mistake we make. You have a friend and they're doing a great time, and you feel like you want to do better."
"To me, this marathon is just going out from my comfort zone and seeing where I can arrive, and doing it for learning."
You can support Eleonora's fundraising for LauraLynn ahead of the Dublin Marathon here.
