Most people start out on the process of training for their first marathon with little real idea of what the race is going to be like. Here, five people who have completed the distance at least once in recent years talk about how those debuts over 26 miles compared to their pre-race expectations.
•Don Ryan: "I prepared for Paris one year, but didn't feel quite ready when it came around so I blew it back 12 months which meant that I was probably a good bit better prepared than most first-timers when I did the race. In the end, it was great. I had done the long runs and took care to take on fluids during the race so I never really hit "the wall" and I had a good bit left at the end. The setting was terrific and I even managed a bit of a sprint over the few hundred metres."
•Nicola Cochrane: "I ran Belfast because I know the city and I really enjoyed it. I'd put together a really strong plan of how I was going to do it beforehand - I paced it carefully, working out where I should be when I hit each particular landmark - and that was a really big help. I think I could have run faster but my only aim was to finish, which I did.
"It was a hugely positive experience and what it did was give me the basis for going away and looking at maybe doing the next one a little bit quicker."
•Colm O'Dwyer: "We'd followed a particular training plan very closely but really, I think it was meant to be the very least you could do to get through the race and I did no more than that the first time. The longest run I'd done was 18 miles so on the day I was lobbing on an extra eight and for the last few I was really struggling. At that stage, though, all the talk and people you'll have to give sponsorship money back to really plays on your mind and, in my case, it was what got me through the most difficult part."
•Paulette Malone: "I'd done all my training running alone on the same country roads night after night which I found boring beyond belief so the race itself [ Dublin] was wonderful because suddenly there were thousands of other people around me and you could chat away or listen into other people's conversations.
"My daughter ran the last few miles with me and I stopped while she stripped off which was a big mistake because it was very difficult to get going again but overall I loved it. I'd always said I wanted to do one but afterwards it very quickly became 'one more'."
•Niall Foley: "I think it was a little bit easier than I expected, to be honest. In fact, I realised with a few miles to go that if I stepped on it a bit I could finish in less than four hours so that's what I did. But I'd seen Ray Darcy standing around before the race and got it into my head for some reason that I had to beat him so it took the shine off things a bit when I realised that this guy who was about 10 years older than me had beaten me by about half an hour."