Another great life-affirming and unifying day in Dublin
ABSOLUTELY nothing in Dublin matches the atmosphere at the start of the SSE Airtricity Marathon, which, on a bright but nippy morning, was as thrilling, nerve-wracking and welcoming as ever yesterday.
Olympic legend Ronnie Delany was inobtrusively observing from the wings at the start-line, where genial commentator Liam Moggan encouraged people with quotations ranging from Noel Carroll to Jonathan Swift and Leonard Cohen.
Then 90-year-old Harry Gorman, the former national champion with a 2:26 PB from the ’60s, back when people regarded marathon runners as crazy people, sounded the klaxon and the huge throng of 20,000 was off.
The 39th Dublin marathon was a particularly special day for female participants.
When the event started in 1980 just 70 women took part.
Yesterday that number had swelled to 7,000 and each of them got a very special finishers’ medal — featuring Countess Markievicz — to mark 100 years since Irish women got the vote.
Just 13 runners have taken part in every Dublin Marathon since 1980, including one woman — the indefatigable Arklow woman Mary Nolan Hickey (66).
Earlier this year she ran a full circuit of 1,509 miles around Ireland to raise €73,000 for the RNLI and, not long afterwards, fell and broke her shoulder.
Yet, despite still being in rehab and not getting in adequate training, she was back again yesterday and kept her Dublin run unbroken, crossing the finish line over five hours later.
Nearly 40 years since she started that first Dublin Marathon, so much has changed.
Runners now run with belts packed with gels and hydration and particularly innovative in recent years is the excellent Dublin Marathon app.
This not only provides results but allows family and friends to track the live progress of every participant, making the logistics of those emotional reunions after the finish-line a lot easier now.
Race pacers have been another brilliant addition.
These run holding huge coloured balloons marked with target times, providing runners with a visible marker and perfect pacing to guide them home safely and help them meet their own personal ambitions.
Among yesterday’s pacers were Kildare brothers Brian and Stephen Conroy.
Brian runs for Clane AC while Stephen runs for Celbridge, but yesterday they joined forces and had serious responsibilty as they were pacing the ambitious 3:00 and 3:10 groups respectively.
Yesterday’s pacers fittingly also included women like Karina Jonina from Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, who was ‘pacing’ Dublin for the second time (the 4:20 group), and Enniscorthy’s Marie Chapman (the 4:50 group).
“My marathon count isn’t that high, maybe 15 to 20, but I run a lot of ultra-distances,” Karina said.
“I always wanted to give back to the running community. You do feel a little pressure. You don’t want to make a mistake because everyone is depending on you.”
Marie was actually running her 139th marathon. She ran her century in Dublin in 2015 and had previously paced 10 marathons, though not all in Dublin.
“It’s really wonderful to help people to get to their goal,” she said. “Today is not about us, it’s about the people we’re running with and for.”
Other recent changes and trends are the rise of visiting runners from every corner of the world, and the drop in those running in fancy-dress, though there were a few yesterday, including a man in a blow-up bath, complete with rubber duck.
Two women who benefited from great pacing were Sorcha Loughnane from the Ballinskelligs Gaeltacht in Kerry and Ailbhe McDaid from Cork.
They were two strangers but united by running, stopping to compare experiences while collecting their medals.
McDaid, who works in UCC, had a 3:10 target so was “absolutely thrilled” to run 3:08.
Loughnane, a Dublin-based civil servant, had been hoping for anything sub-3:20, so was ecstatic to finish in 3:09.
She revealed that her success wasn’t just down to great raceday pacing.
“Gary O’Hanlon coaches me. If anyone is going to help you get faster it’s Gary,” she said of last year’s Irish men’s champion who ran a PB himself yesterday when he was runner-up in the A thletics Ireland National Championships that are now incorporated in this great life-affirming and unifying event.