Dublin, October
Irish Life Dublin Marathon Pacing Plan
Starts near Fitzwilliam Square, passes St Patrick's Cathedral, crosses the Liffey onto the Northside, and enters Phoenix Park — Europe's largest enclosed city park — around the 10km mark for a stretch past Dublin Zoo on Chesterfield Avenue. The short climb exiting the park near Castleknock is the course's main incline; the rest is gently undulating through southern neighborhoods like Terenure and Rathgar before finishing at Merrion Square.
Distance
42.6 km
Elevation gain
+136m / -137m
Typically run in
October
Typical race-day weather
10°C, 14 km/h
Weather is a 10-year seasonal average for this course's location and month, not a forecast for a specific date — see FAQ.
Elevation profile
Sample strategy — 3:45:00 goal
A real, AI-generated excerpt of what Splitsmith produces for this exact course — not a hand-written example. Upload your own goal and recent results to get the full plan.
KM 1-3 — The course tips gently downhill here, -0.4% to -0.9%, and the crowd surges accordingly. Hold 5:07-4:59/km — that's already close to your goal pace, so there's nothing to gain by going faster. You cross 3K at 15:18; if you're well under that, you're spending reserves you'll want back at km35.
KM 4-12 — The road tilts upward through this stretch, grades from +0.1% to +1.4%, with a headwind at km7 and km12 adding resistance. Splits naturally settle to 5:26-5:33/km — let them; fighting the grade now only shows up as fatigue after halfway. You reach 12K at 1:04:19, still exactly on pace for 3:45 even though the numbers feel slow in the moment.
KM 13-16 — A genuine downhill drop, -1.9% at km13 and -2.3% at km16, pulls splits down to 4:44 and 4:41/km — the fastest kilometers of the race. Let gravity do the work but don't force it faster; headwind on both km13 and km16 keeps the effort honest even as the watch looks fast. You hit 16K at 1:23:47, comfortably inside your 3:45 pace band.
Build your Irish Life Dublin Marathon plan
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Build my Irish Life Dublin Marathon plan →Splitsmith is an independent pacing-plan tool and is not an official partner, sponsor, or affiliate of the Irish Life Dublin Marathon or its organizers. Course data source: digitized from the official course.