A walk through Paris last Sunday week took Michael McNena past some of the city's bestknown sites, but he didn't notice any of them.
It's like that when you're doing a marathon. "You just want to finish the race," says the 60-year-old Waterford bookshop owner. "Nothing else matters. Nothing. You'd nearly walk over a child to get there." Not content with having completed the Paris event, Michael is now training for the Prague marathon on May 20th. Then it's Dublin in October. His doctor, he admits, told him he was "effing mad" when informed of his plan to walk the three marathons to raise funds for Waterford Hospice.
"I just love it, although every race I was in, bar one, I wanted to pull out of it." This included the Paris marathon which, unlike Dublin which attracts a high proportion of walkers and fun-runners, is a fiercely competitive event.
Of the 30,000 participants who gathered on the Champs Elysees for the start, Mr McNena and his son, Michael jnr, who is also raising money for the hospice, were the only two walkers. And for all but the first two of the 26 miles the older man found himself alone.
"I just followed a blue line in the middle of the road, otherwise I might never have found the finish. I might have ended up in Bruges or somewhere. It was the loneliest 5 1/2 hours of my life." So lonely, in fact, that for the second half of the race he had to "fight for water and sponges" as the water stations had closed and the bottles had been locked away. "Even the bands had stopped playing. There was one every five kilometres but by the time I got there every one of them had gone home except a group of Fijian dancers."
He hopes to raise £10,000 in sponsorship for the hospice, which relies heavily on voluntary fundraising, and is almost a third of the way there. He also plans to fine himself £250 each time he fails to finish a marathon within six hours and 15 minutes. In Paris he "fell over the line" two minutes inside that limit.
"I wanted to give up on 10 or 12 occasions but I pushed myself on and on until I got over the line. They had closed when I got there but I got someone to record my time and managed to get a medal." He did pass about 20 runners towards the finish but "to be in the last 20 among 30,000 people was a humbling experience".
It was also physically shattering and Michael had to be lifted from the ground by a relative. Then, unable to get a taxi, he had to walk a mile to the nearest Metro.
After a week's break he resumed training with a five-mile walk on Monday and felt "as fresh as a daisy - I would love to have done about 15 miles". His main concern about Prague is that the route be on level ground. "Paris is not very flat, there are a lot of little hills. Downhill is harder than uphill but any undulation in the ground is murder. It absolutely saps any energy you have." After this year Michael, who did his first marathon, in Dublin in 1999, plans to walk about one a year. "Three in seven months is a burden. But I celebrated my 60th birthday in January and I reached it in reasonably good health, so I made a decision to do something for the hospice."
Would-be sponsors can contact him at the Book Centre on John Roberts Square, telephone 051-873823.