Every runner in the Cork City Marathon has a story

Over 6,000 people have signed up for the Cork City Marathon. From the woman taking on seven runs in seven continents, to a relay team of superheroes, every one of them has a story, says Ellie O’Byrne

SUPERHEROES Tara Brosnan, Dave Hayes, Olan Murray, Jonathan Young and Cormac Doherty are sitting around a table in the staff-room of Scoil na Croise Naofa, in Mahon. They’re everything you could want from a bunch of superheroes; they’re young, they’re enthusiastic, and they’re fighting for the forces of good.

Dave, Tara and Olan teach at the school. They have formed a relay team that will run in the Cork City Marathon in superhero outfits, to raise funds for school equipment and a website. Dave, 25, who teaches fourth class, is a member of Cork Con Rugby Club, and his two rugby-playing friends, Jonathan and Cormac, agreed to participate, too.

Cormac, 24, is a former president of Trinity Athletics. The team is fit, but the costumes are causing consternation, especially for Olan, who will run as Superman.

“We tried them on for the first time last night. Some of them were a little bit tighter than others. I actually broke the zip on mine. These guys got a good laugh out of it, anyway,” he said.

Tara, who teaches fifth class, will run as Wonderwoman. “There’s a lot of excitement in my class about their teachers being dressed up as superheroes,” she said. “Childhood obesity is something that really needs to be tackled, so we’re also being role models, trying to promote exercise and get them to see it as a good thing.”

This year, 6,800 people have registered for the Cork City Marathon. Every runner, whether for the 26 miles, or the half-marathon, or in a relay, has a story. Some are running as a personal test of endurance, others to get back in shape, or to raise money for charity.

Just before Christmas of 2013, Damien O’Donoghue’s family was devastated by the suicide of his uncle. Less than a year later, a cousin committed suicide. Damien, 29, started running to raise money for suicide awareness. “I wanted to do it for Cork Search and Rescue Team, but they’re not a recognised charity. There was a lot of hard work put in by them. My cousin was in the river; he was in there for four and a half weeks, and they never gave up looking,” he said.

His charity is now CONSOLE, a national suicide awareness organisation that offers counselling and support. “I really felt that raising a bit of money would be of help to people, and I said running would be the easiest thing, really, but it’s not that easy, because the training is tough,” he said. Damien will run the half-marathon; he completed 10k in the Great Limerick Run in early May.

Bernd Kalinowski and Stefan Bicher are long-distance runners from Rohrbach, in Bavaria. They will run the 255km from Dublin to Cork, and will run the Cork marathon two days later. Bernd, a 36-year-old chemist, started running as part of military service. For both Bernd and Stefan, travel is part of why they run. Bernd and Stefan plan to run 50km per day from Dublin to Cork, before the marathon. Having completed 144 marathons in ten countries, what draws Bernd to endurance running?

“The human being itself has always run or walked great distances every day. I don’t know where I read it, but every human, when they were hunter-gatherers, covered a distance of about 60-70km per day. I think the human being is constructed for long distances. But that’s only my theory,” Bernd said.

The relay is achievable, and team participation makes for great fun. Caitriona Dorgan is the team captain for the Dorgan Fillies, one of two Dorgan family teams.

Brothers and nephews are racing sisters and wives; the male team are the Dorgan Colts.

Coming from a family of seven siblings, Caitriona says that there’s always been “a lot of banter”.

The Dorgans are running for fitness. As a team captain, Caitriona is responsible for motivating her team-mates and for monitoring their training. The Dorgan Fillies text each other photographs as proof that they are training. Keeping the spirits high can be a challenge. “Some of them are still going, ‘err, I mightn’t make it,’ and I’m saying, ‘I don’t care, you’re doing it. You can walk it if you want to walk it.’ The idea wasn’t to have to run it, it was just to do any leg of it,” she said.

Two hundred international runners are registered to do either full- or half-marathons. Seventy-year-old Robin Foley, his son, Alan, and his daughter, Julie-Anne Rispoli, are doing the half-marathon.

The Foleys emigrated from Cork in 1983, when Julie-Anne was aged six. First settling in New Jersey, they moved to Florida and are still there.

They have maintained their links to Cork, though, and Julie-Anne was keen to accompany her dad, “for the old fella, in case he fell along the way,” as Robin said.

Robin has run several half-marathons, as well as a triathlon in Pensacola, Fl. “I enjoy it, even though it can be a bit brutal. Once you start you wonder what you’re doing but, once you finish, you wonder when is the next half-marathon that you can sign up for,” he said.

Julie-Anne is proud of her dad. “When I saw him finish the triathlon, on Pensacola beach, I’d just had my first child and I said, ‘next year, I’m doing it, because if he can do it, I can do it’. At 70, to be doing what he’s doing? He’s certainly an inspiration,” she said.

Cindy Kramer, 55, from California, is a high-school athletics coach who is seeking membership of the Seven Continents Club, an elite group of 390 runners worldwide who have completed a marathon on every continent, including a gruelling Antarctic marathon.

Cork will be her fourth, official Seven Continents marathon. She has run Mount Kilimanjaro, and The Gold Coast in Australia, and plans to run in Rio next year, for her South American marathon. She has already booked her Antarctic marathon for 2017.

“I just kind of told my school that I will have run all six continents by then, and that, even though it’s in the middle of the school year, I’d really like to finish it as a life achievement, and they’re all on board, they’re very supportive,” she said.

“I’ve heard nothing but good things about Cork and how beautiful it is, how the weather is,” she said.

“I’m fine with rain. It’s 102 F in Southern California right now and we’re in the middle of a drought. I don’t want to run in that heat. I’m looking forward to the cooler weather myself.”

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