A good day - and there's always next year

MARATHON DIARY:FOR QUITE a few years while living in Inchicore, the route of the marathon passed the end of our road and everyone in the Malone household would be blissfully unaware of its approach.

That was, at least, until the morning of each October bank holiday morning when, with a remarkable ability to be just as surprised and put out each year, we would find that we were captives in our cul-de-sac.

A garda would stand on duty at the entrance in case anyone was desperate or determined enough to plough their car into the stream of passing runners.

Now, I’m a prisoner of the event in a rather different way and the 3½ hours the race lasted for me felt like a slightly drawn- out and painful release process.

The event signalled the fact that months of squeezing increasingly long training runs into already busy days and more work trips away than I had anticipated were at an end and by the time you read this, I will be getting used to having a large chunk of my daily life back.

This was marathon number three for me. Having had to postpone a planned debut in New York when the Irish football team qualified for the European Championship play-offs, the intention was to take advantage of the more familiar, somewhat easier they say, Dublin course to make a decent inroad into my previous best finishing time of 3 hours 55 minutes.

With the help of Don, my one-man cycling support team, my family and any friends unlucky enough to live within a mile or so of the course, I did that much and, as they say about others in slightly different circumstances, I’m tired but doing well, although it wasn’t an entirely straightforward affair.

In a nutshell, miles one to four were grand, miles four to eight (mainly downhill in the Park) were great but I started to find it a little more difficult after that.

Just about every niggling injury I’ve ever had made a guest reappearance over the tail-end of the race and, while none was serious, they and growing fatigue made it hard going at times.

I knew I wasn’t quite the mass of pent-up energy my taper was supposed to produce when it took me a good mile and a half around Crumlin to pass a woman in a partly inflated horse costume; by the time I hit Walkinstown, I realised the negative split (running the second half more quickly) was no more than a pipe dream.

The time began to slip badly in Terenure, just as it had two years ago when I really started to fall apart there.

This time the crowd lifted me for a bit as they already had at several spots along the route, particularly Chapelizod and Dolphin’s Barn, and would later, after a difficult spin around Belfield, on Foster’s Avenue.

There seemed to be more spectators this year and it makes a hell of a difference when you’re struggling out there. The biggest surprise was Westland Row, which I’ve never seen so packed, although I was beyond moral support at that stage.

Unsure of how long it would take me to run around Trinity, I missed out on a “sub 3.30” time by seconds but was happy enough at the end as I met up with club mates from Crusaders.

My run was a curious mix of grim endurance and tremendous enjoyment. On the wider front, it seemed a good day too (until the rain really set in) and the buzz around Merrion Square afterwards was terrific.

The event’s new sponsor, the National Lottery, seemed to have embraced the whole thing impressively, which helped.

I’ll admit I may not have invested quite what was required to meet heightened expectations in the wake of good 10 mile and half marathon races during the build up to yesterday.

As families up and down the country will be thrilled to hear during the coming weeks and months, though, there’s always next year.