Undertaking a marathon assignment

SPORTING PASSIONS:The Tipperary hurling great tells Mark Roddenabout his decision to run the Dublin marathon and his admiration of individual sports personalities

I HAD it in my mind to run the Dublin marathon because a friend of mine was on to me at the start of the year about doing it and I said I wouldn't have the commitment. The year went on and then Adidas gave me a call asking would I do it for charity. So I said I'd give it a go.

I started doing a bit of training and I spoke to the charity that I had in mind, which was Trust in Dublin. Myself, Peter Canavan and Alan Kerins from Galway are doing it and I know they have charities they're running for as well.

Down through the years I always enjoyed running. In the off-season I would have done a good bit of training on my own and I have a lovely run up the mountain at the foot of Slievenamon of about four and a half miles. I'd be a frequent visitor there anyway just to keep myself in some kind of condition.

Some people were saying I'd be mad to do the marathon but I've had no adverse reaction from my knees so far.

I got the two cruciates done a few years ago and between the two of them it kept me out for two or three years. But since I started doing the running the knees have held up well.

The day I did the 10-mile in the Phoenix Park in August was a real test because it was the longest distance I had done up to then. I thought I might be a bit sore the day after it but I was able to play a round of golf.

It's a different type of training compared to team sports. When you're training for Gaelic games you do a good bit of stamina work but you do a lot of strength work on your body and a lot more short sprints.

With this you try and gauge the pace that you start running at, particularly now that the miles are building up. You're not setting out at full belt or even 50 per cent at times, you're just trying to build yourself up because you know you have a long distance to go.

It is a mental thing as well. I find now when I'm running that when you come to the end of the run, the mind starts trying to give up and you have to tell it to keep going. In the 10-mile race, the last two miles it was telling me to stop and walk to the line. But I had myself timed and I knew I had two miles to go. I said I'd be back in 20 minutes, so that kept me focused. You could opt out but coming from a sporting background you'd be inclined to keep going and the sense of achievement when I did finish was great.

I saw some of the marathon in the Olympics but the most impressive sport I watched was the walking. However bad running is, I'd hate to walk at that level. I just found it an amazing sport to look at and I'm sure they walk a lot faster than I run.

I've always been a great admirer of individual sports people. You look at the likes of Pádraig Harrington, Johnny Murtagh and any of the athletes that represented Ireland like Joanne Cuddihy and Eileen O'Keeffe - they're on their own and if anything goes wrong they're left on their own.

In team sports you always have somebody to back you up. You can depend on other guys pulling the team through when you're not feeling in the best of form or you're carrying an injury. You can get another day out.

I've always considered myself to be very lucky with sport. It gave me an awful lot of opportunities and playing something that I loved always helped me throughout my work as well.

Trust, the charity I'm running for, is a homeless charity and a lot of people up there don't have a roof over their head; they don't have their own clothing or they're not able to have a full breakfast in the morning.

Alice Leahy, who's running the organisation, has done great work for the last 30 years with the homeless and my part is to do a bit of training and a bit of running, which is a very small sacrifice to make.

I'd be just hoping that I can get through the race. As I've said to a few people, I have all day to run it. If I start putting a target on it I know that I'd start pushing myself and I might push myself too much trying to reach a time.

If I can run at a steady pace throughout and just get finished, that'd be my target.