It's a Dad's Life:I read in this paper last Saturday that Fintan O'Toole ran a marathon in 1996 in three hours and 24 minutes, writes Adam Brophy.
In the same article he spoke about the marathon being the wimp's revenge on jock athletes, a pointless event only ever completed because it can be, and where a "good" time is purely subjective.
He is so right it frightens me. Tomorrow I head to New York to take part in the Yank version of the party that just finished here. The lumbering 6'6" frame which (as it preceded my lack of any obvious talent) made me a target for rugby coaches throughout my teens, is utterly unsuited to distance running, making the possibility of equalling Fintan's 3:24 as distant as joining the winners on the podium in Central Park. My "good" time will involve stumbling over the line within an hour of him.
It's not like I'm not trying. All summer and autumn I've ploughed Dublin's northern coastline and communed with the deer in the Phoenix Park. My drinking has been reduced to the occasional, snaffled minor binge while my favourite vice, Lady Marlboro, has been rather miffed at her jilting.
Fortunately, she is open to brief re-encounters, usually during the aforementioned binges when the path of righteousness, for whatever reason, has become clouded to me.
I am my own good Lord - with one hand I giveth unto myself, and with the other I taketh away. After week-15 of my marathon training schedule, I celebrated completing a total of 43 miles with a large Dominos Mighty Meaty followed by a skinful of lager. It was a reasoned celebration: a marathon runner needs not only to increase their carbohydrate intake (hence pizza and pale beer instead of dark) but also to bulk up with protein (welcome Mr Mighty Meaty). So, while by my own standards the last few months have been über healthy like the finishing time, this is a subjective assessment. And not surprisingly, these two things could be directly linked.
But I really don't care. All I care about is the fact that next Sunday I will run 26 miles with some 40,000 other people, in one of the greatest cities in the world while some two million people scream us on, and I know I will be able to finish it. Right at this moment I am more excited about that prospect than I have been about anything since Paul Rideout headed home for Everton in the 1995 FA Cup final.
There has been the small matter of a couple of births and a wedding in the interim, but this is a sporting buzz I had forgotten existed. I ran Dublin last year in a fug of fear because the training had been sporadic and finishing was never a given. The daft thing is that even while crossing the line in sublime agony I was thinking about doing it all again, but better the next time.
Kids come along and they are selfish enough to make you grow up. I can't get away with throwing tantrums when both my daughters can up the ante to a point where I can't possibly call for fear of spontaneous combustion. But running a marathon, despite accepting how pointless an exercise it really is, gives you a hint of that feeling you last had when you were a kid yourself. That you are a little bit special and that for maybe a second (and obviously only in your own fantasy) at the starting line you have as much of a chance as anyone of winning. You don't and you won't but being part of it has me jitterbugging like a six-year-old in Christmas week.
As it happens, I am running for the Children's Medical and Research Foundation in Crumlin Hospital and still taking sponsorship. If anyone wants to chip in, the contact is below . . .
