Superheroes, oh la las, and record breakers

A trickle of blood from the occasional stumble, lots of dribbling sweat, but no sign of tears as the fitter citizens of Cork and Dublin took to the streets to give each other’s city marathon a run for its money.

In Cork, it was the full monty — all 26 miles and 385 yards of it — in perfect starting weather conditions with an overcast day that was as cool as the running outfits on display. In Dublin, runners turned out in force for the Flora Women’s mini marathon.

In fact, Cork had a marathon and a half, as the day-long event included a half marathon. Early birds were catching the first turn: Running from the Silver Springs Moran Hotel in Tivoli to Kent Railway Station from 7.30am.

It looked like they were going the wrong way, but it was merely a preamble to the main event.

“This is just our warm-up,” said one marathon veteran who looked like he could run rings around anyone half his age. “By the time the real thing starts, we’ll have run a marathon already.”

As nine bells struck, jittery runners were pounding the tarmac on St Patrick’s Street. Then they were off. Onlookers were already exhausted, darting around to see if McDonald’s might be open for breakfast.

“For some reason, they are making me hungry,” said Jeff, a visitor from Boston who had also been at the finishing line of his city’s marathon when the bomber struck. “That was both a disaster and a triumph. It was horrible at the time and very frightening but the terrorists failed because they could not break the spirit of the people of Boston.”

More than two hours later, you could see that kind of spirit in motion on the streets of Cork as the first runners came over the line back on St Patrick’s Street.

The early finishers were the serious marathoners. For the next hour, almost 50 of them powered through. Louis, from the village of Vernon in Normandy, looked like he could go on forever. Clad in figure splitting lycra shorts, he turned the heads of the female onlookers. “Oh la la...” said one, spying his taut buns and agreeing that it wouldn’t take too much of an effort to drum La Marseillaise on them.

For most of the early finishers, it was all about doing better than their best. The Marathon Man — otherwise known as Trent Morrow from Australia — was a little upset that he kept being mistaken for Superman, but! he was dressed for the part so what did he expect?

“It was great,” he said, pronouncing himself happy with his performance. “I did the last three marathons — Edinburgh, Stockholm — and here within two minutes of the same time. This is marathon number 57 so far this year and I’ve only got 103 to go in 2013 to get the world record.

“The weirdest thing is this is one of the first I’ve done out of the rain, and it’s in Ireland. I really enjoyed the race and especially the last few miles when I was able to give people who were struggling a lift. C’mon, I kept saying — if I can do 160 you can finish one for sure.”

Poland’s Bartosz Muzerski fended off Clonliffe Harriers’s Gary O’Hanlon to take the Cork marathon by just 23 seconds. O’Hanlon was aiming to make it two in eight days following his victory in Newry last weekend, but it just proved too much as Muzerski pulled away in the final mile to win in a time of 2:28:29.

The winner of the women’s marathon was Olympian Pauline Curley.

The Tullamore Harriers runner edged out Angela McCann, who was bidding for three in a row, with a course record 2:47:44. The winning relay team was East Cork Athletic Club who came home in 2:18:06.