Unstinting support from start to finish helps carry the weary over the line

THERE IS no one way to run a race, and yesterday, I ran the 32nd National Lottery Dublin Marathon on a bus. Just before the gun sounded, and a few minutes after the athletes with their aerodynamic wheelchairs started, the media minibus jolted forward and started off along the 26.5-mile route.

Behind us, thousands of legs of varying agility moved like determined pistons, propelling forward a giant and gallant engine of humanity of more than 14,000 people. Some of the legs, those belonging to the elite athletes, were covering ground almost as fast as our bus was travelling.

Whether you were a top athlete who runs the marathon at various cities around the world or, like Justin Keys, running his “first and last” one, yesterday, Dubliners treated everyone the same.

From the North Circular Road, through Chapelizod Road, from Dolphins Barn through Crumlin, Walkinstown and Terenure Road East, from Clonskeagh to the Merrion Road and onwards back into town and Merrion Square, people stood in clusters along the streets and cheered.

There were water stands and feeding stations, but the real sustenance for the runners came from the ordinary people who made a point of taking time from their bank holiday Monday to acknowledge effort, courage, bloody-mindedness and the countless untold stories that motivate so many to run.

In Crumlin, a woman stood in her garden, beating a saucepan with a wooden spoon. On Fortfield Road, two women in flowery pyjamas ran out of a house, clutching cameras and cups of tea. On Orwell Park, an elderly man in a wheelchair watched intently for the first signs of the race while someone held an umbrella to shelter them both from the rain that had just started falling.

Some people had made signs. “Go Daddy Go, love Fionn” read the brown cardboard sign that a tiny child in a Spider-Man outfit was waving at the top of O’Connell Street. “Run like you’re late for Mass,” instructed one on Templeogue Road. “Hurry Up!” was the cheeky message in Kimmage.

In the event, the runners did hurry up; so much so that the Dublin marathon record was broken yesterday. Kenyan Geoffrey Ndungu finished in a time of 2.08.32, with five of his compatriots following him across the line to take the first half-dozen placings. First Irishman home was Seán Connolly and first Irishwoman was Linda Byrne, who qualified for the London Olympics. The top wheelchair athlete was Paul Hannon.

In the stand by the finish line at Merrion Square to watch Ndungu win was former miler Ronnie Delany, who won Olympic gold in 1956 for the 1,500m race. Fifty-five years on, does his heart still thump when he hears a starting gun? “When you’ve climbed Mount Olympus, you drop your ambitions,” was his laughing reply.

Reaching Merrion Mount Olympus Square was all most people wanted to achieve yesterday. Once they got there, many hung over railings like seasick passengers at the end of a long voyage staring in disbelief and gratitude down at a dock they thought they would never reach.

One such participant was Gráinne Stables, wearing a T-shirt that said “Ryan’s Daughter”. Originally from Portmarnock and now living in Bristol, it was her first marathon and she was running it for the Irish Heart Foundation in memory of her father Joe, who died 13 years ago.

“The support was amazing,” she marvelled. “I felt like the most famous person in Dublin.”

Also running for his father, Andrew McCarthy, who died just five weeks ago of lung cancer, was PJ from Waterford city. He had a photograph of his father’s face on his T-shirt. It was PJ’s fifth marathon, however, as he confessed with emotion, “usually I’m a good runner, but this one was hard on my head”. He plans to frame his T-shirt with his marathon medal and certificate.

JJ Green, who lives in north Wales, had just run his 43rd marathon, all of which have been in aid of the RNLI. His daughter Aoife ran yesterday’s with him. “We kept each other going,” they agreed in unison.

Close to tears as she crossed the line was a woman running her third marathon, along with 47 others from her West Waterford running club. “I do them every second year and every year I forget the pain.”

Her name? “Mary Harney and I’m not joking you. When I ran the last time, in ’09, the organisers thought I was collecting my number on behalf of the other Mary Harney, who was then the minister for health.”

One of the signs we had passed in the Phoenix Park had declared: “Ignore all speed limits.”

People did. Long after the category winners had raced home, everyone else kept on running, jogging, walking, or stumbling until they reached the line and could finally stop, looking simultaneously dazed, exhausted – and triumphant.