Marathon effort as 11,000 race the capital
He ran a full 24 miles to the senate and burst in shouting “Victory is ours”, before collapsing and dying on the floor.
It’s hard to see how his over-exertion inspired a worldwide phenomenon, but yesterday almost 11,000 people from 52 countries took to the streets for the 28th Dublin City Marathon.
Unlike poor Pheidippides, thankfully there were no deaths or serious injuries in yesterday’s event.
But many battles were fought, victories celebrated and many weary legs fell to the ground at the finish line nonetheless.
Michael O’Connor from Galway fought the hardest of these battles to beat Cian McLoughlin and Gary Crossan by less than a minute to become the Irish champion. Tullamore’s Pauline Curley came in fastest of the Irish women.
But the Irish had already lost the battle of overall marathon champion to the Russians — who celebrated a double victory, with Alina Ivanova winning the women’s title and Aleksey Sokolove winning the men’s, in so doing also breaking the record for the quickest Dublin marathon.
Richie Powell from Wales won the wheelchair race.
The marathon race was extended from 24 to 26 miles in the 1908 London Olympics because the Queen wanted it to finish beside her residence.
In keeping with the tradition, yesterday’s race finished under the nose of the Government Buildings.
And the history of the great race continued to be written as 15 members of the same family managed to break a world record by becoming the biggest-ever family to complete a marathon together.
The O’Donoghue family from Birr in Offaly said they were never sporty growing up and the idea to enter the marathon began as a joke last Christmas, when they were flicking through the Guinness Book of Records and saw a family of 12 had completed a marathon.
“We had a laugh and said sure we could beat them,” said Cronan, 33, the youngest of the family.
“We talked about it a few times, and it sort of got serious. When my brother Noel came home from California in February for his 40th birthday, we had a party for him.
“Someone got us on a video camera saying we were going to do the marathon together and after that there was no going back,” he said.
The family was inspired by nephew, Mark, 2, who has Down’s syndrome, and by the time they crossed the finish line yesterday they had raised €40,000 for the charity Down’s Syndrome Ireland.
Robert O’Donoghue, 45, said he never felt better after the race. “We met the wall, and we climbed it, and we knocked if down or got around it somehow,” he said.
For most of the runners in what was the fastest Dublin marathon ever, the dreaded “wall” came after the 20 mile mark, when a feeling sets in that you just can’t go on.
Comedian Ed Byrne hit his wall at about 19 miles, and said he did a bit of jogging and a bit of walking to come in under five hours. “We all take our victory where we can find it and I’m delighted with myself,” he said.
One man who felt more victorious than most was Paddy Craddock, 73, from Blackrock in Dublin, who completed the marathon in three hours and 50 minutes.
He was greeted by some of his 14 grandchildren as he crossed the Dublin City Marathon finish line for the 28th time.
