Overwhelmed by grim tales of economic collapse and State incompetence? Escape into the next marathon, writes ANN MARIE HOURIHANE
THERE ARE a lot of people out running in Dublin at the moment. The worse the news gets, the more runners there are on the pavements, the roads, in the parks and on the beach – first thing in the morning, last thing at night and all through the weekend. The more the reports pile up, the faster these citizens run. Some people may think that the Dublin City Marathon, on October 26th, may have something to do with this outbreak of pavement-pounding. But it’s really the economy, stupid.
The Dublin City Marathon is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and it is probably the only enterprise in its native city that’s currently doing well. Entries this year are expected to exceed the 11,700 who ran last year. Already the preliminary races – the five-mile in July, the 10-mile in August and the half-marathon on September 26th – have been over-subscribed, according to some Dublin Marathon people.
But overseas entries are down.
“They weren’t overly impressed by the course,” says our marathon-running source. Apparently the foreign runners were not overly impressed by the level of support on offer in Dublin either. Outside the city centre, they had to run on some pretty empty streets, or past young men making what newspapers call “ironic” comments and what my mother would call “smart-alec” remarks.
But the home crowd is running. Oh yes. There are more people out training this year than last, says our marathon-running source. And it’s easy to see why. Even the most sanguine of us is convinced now that things have gone critical. The news that the private healthcare companies don’t bother paying the taxpayer for the hospital beds they use is enough on its own to make you reach for your running shoes.
Colm McCarthy said last week that the country is bust – not that we ever doubted for one second that it was. All in all, the question facing your ordinary citizen at the moment is this: what to do with all this bad news? It is no surprise that the more rational members of the community have started running till they drop.
Running – we are told – alleviates anxiety, flushes the system with endorphins and renders you so physically exhausted that you can actually sleep at night. In many ways its effects are narcotic. So it is either running or heroin, I suppose. And running is free.
Of course, there are lies
told about running as well. “Running the marathon doesn’t make you lose weight,” said our marathon-running source, who is training very hard. “No matter what they say. On the other hand, it is true that marathon-runners come down the stairs backwards after a hard run, because your quadriceps are so strained.”
This country needs displacement activities quite badly, in order to keep us chipper. If we have to come down the stairs backwards in order to stay sane, then so be it. Because all the terrifying information that is trickling out of our financial and Government institutions has an emotional impact which has not yet been publicly acknowledged, as far as I know. An emotional impact on the people who had nothing to do with the crisis except for the fact that they have ended up paying for it. You do feel like a sucker. And feeling like a sucker cannot be good for your blood pressure. Much better to start training as soon as you possibly can.
It is undeniable that the further one is from the centre of the action the more stressful this bust is. The boys in the pinstripe suits can go and have a few swift ones on a Friday and talk about what a hairy week they’ve had. It’s different when you’re hearing about the national calamity while standing at the ironing board in your kitchen, or listening to the radio in your tractor in the middle of an empty field.
We’ve been talking so far about the crisis in general terms but not about the very personal results of the crisis. We’ve just been talking about ordinary people being bombarded with one story after another of official perfidy and incompetence – at this stage, it’s kind of hard to tell which is worse.
But there are also the daddies who can now, suddenly, train for the marathon while the kids are at school. There are undoubtedly the mammies who can suddenly do the same. Running the marathon is one of those short-term goal projects that the psychologists are always getting so excited about, when they’re studying the long-term unemployed.
Whatever their reasons, some citizens have decided that, if nothing else is going to happen this year, they are going to complete the Dublin Marathon – or whichever race is appropriate to them. In times like this, it makes sense to turn inwards, and deal with the stuff over which you have control
As long as your knees last out until October, you’ll be laughing. That’s why you’re out pounding pavements with your iPods plugged in, fleeing Nama, the Lisbon Treaty and Fás accounting practices as fast as your little feet can carry you. And who is to say you are wrong?