ATHLETICS:I had always assumed I'd see my buddy taken away in a white jacket with very long sleeves before I'd see him in a road race. Now he's up for the Irish Runner five-miler, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

WE WERE sitting at the Table of Truth in the Blue Light on Wednesday night when my friend Conn Fitz said he wanted to enter the Irish Runnerfive-miler. If we were anywhere else I'd have thought he was out of his mind, as he often is, but he looked serious, and there was a strong rumour going around that he had actually succumbed to the running bug.

“Are you insane?” I asked. “It’s a bit late now. The race is Saturday. I don’t think I’m even fit enough to do it this year. Look, order another drink, and we’ll do it next year.”

He was serious. Just when I thought there was nothing left about Conn Fitz that could surprise me, including his recent idea to open an opium farm in Bolivia, he tells me he wants to enter his first road race.

I realised there and then exactly why we are in the midst of a running boom. I had always assumed I’d see Conn taken away in a white jacket with very long sleeves before I’d see him in a road race.

He turned 34 last week and the only running he’s ever done in those years is away from trouble. In fact, the main reason we became friends to begin with was because he had zero interest in sport. I grew up wanting to be Seb Coe and he grew up wanting to be Iggy Pop – and he has come a lot closer to replicating his idol than I have mine.

Conn quickly earned a reputation for danger in the O’Riordan household, our parents warning us that “he’d drink Lough Erne dry”, but to me he was always a breath of fresh air from the running business.

For as long as I’ve known him Conn’s idea of an endurance test was to work up an alcoholic frenzy to last the entire weekend and his only experience of speed work was to consume industrial amounts of Benzedrine.

Those days are clearly behind him. A few weeks ago he told me he’d bought a new pair of runners and I thought that’d be the last I’d hear of it.

But you can’t argue with the newly converted. Conn was determined to make the start line on Saturday no matter how hard I tried to put him off. So I told him I’d email Frank Greally first thing in the morning, and then we ordered another drink.

Frank started up the Irish Runnerfive-miler as a joint venture with Jim Aughney of the Dublin marathon and Paul Moloney of Adidas.

That was seven years ago. They were sitting at Heathrow Airport, returning from the London marathon, trying to figure a way of increasing participation in the Dublin marathon. The country was on the verge of a boom but running was in recession, and they agreed affirmative action was needed.

They came up with the Dublin marathon pre-race series: a five-miler in July, a 10-miler in August and a half-marathon in September. Each one to be staged in the Phoenix Park in the hope they would entice more people into the full marathon.

Frank, the indefatigable editor of Irish Runnermagazine, put his weight behind the five-miler, although if he knew then what he does now he might have had second thoughts.

He rang me on Thursday morning with the speedy behaviour of a man under severe pressure:

“Send me your details as quick as you can and I’ll see what I can do. But the whole thing has gone balubas. We’re up over 5,000 already and if this continues we could actually run out of race numbers.”

I’ve never known Frank to lose his cool but it sounded like he was calling from a madhouse.

We agreed to meet in town around lunchtime, and never knowing Frank to let me down, I headed to Runways to pick up some flashy new gear for Saturday’s race.

The most important thing when it comes to any running event is not actually being fit, but looking fit. That way you can always drop out and blame it on over-training.

Runways is on Parnell Street, right next to Cycleways. Both shops are managed by Shane Connaughton, although his background is rooted in cycling. Cycleways was opened in 1984 by his father, Brian, and Philip Cassidy, two legends of the Rás, and while that was doing perfectly well, Shane had the idea of expanding into the running business.

Less than two years after opening Runways he’s making a tidy profit. There aren’t many businesses in the current climate to rival that – including those peddling in cheap booze and discount animal feed.

We went for a coffee and it quickly became clear Shane had also succumbed to the running bug. He’s just started up the Runways club, with a training run from the shop every Monday and Wednesday evening. It’s open to everyone and the only condition is that you show up by 6.15.

Having ridden the Rás several times himself, I wanted to know whether he found the cycling or the running more challenging – knowing full well that all runners thought cycling was for sissies.

“I don’t know if you can compare like with like. They’re both as tough, as extreme, in their own right, and when you’re flat out, it’s like asking if you’d rather have a drill put through your ear or through your hand.

“I just think it’s easier for runners to take to cycling than it is the opposite. Not many cyclists have made a successful switch to running.”

Then Frank showed up with two race numbers, 5312 for myself, and 5313 for Conn.

“That’s the last of them,” he said. “We’ve completely run out of numbers. We were supposed to be taking final entries in Blanchardstown tomorrow, but it’s a complete sell-out. The whole thing has gone crazy, beyond all expectations.”

With that Frank rushed off, like loose electricity, saying he’d still a massive load to do before Saturday.

He’d just ordered 5,000 bananas from Madden’s in the Fruit Market and they had to be collected. There were still plenty more goody bags to be filled.

Everyone who enters the Irish Runnerfive-miler gets a goody bag, plus a race T-shirt. But value for their €20 is only one small reason why 5,000 runners will show up at 10am today to run five miles around the Phoenix Park.

The country is bust, running is booming, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why these phenomena are not entirely unrelated.

When I called Conn to tell him that we were all set for Saturday, he was just back from a training run.

“I was just thinking,” he said, “was there any chance of an entry for the New York Marathon?”

That’s exactly why we are in the midst of a running boom.