Thousands of women brave the heat for mini marathon
Over 40,000 women took to the sun-laden streets of Dublin today some in search of glory and others for a hard-earned buck for their favourite charity.
The charities from every county in Ireland were the biggest winners with an estimated €10m being injected into their coffers.
Spokeswoman for the 24th Women’s Mini Marathon Catherine MacNeill said sunblock and water were the themes of the day as the temperatures soared into the mid-20s.
“The heat has been building all over the weekend,” she said. “We we encouraged all the women to bring along a bottle of water with them, we have water at the start of the event, we have water at the Stillorgan dual carriageway and water at the finish.”
As the sun shone down, one woman, Aisling O’Brien, from Dublin’s Blanchardstown said: “I’m going to die in the heat.”
But she was still determined to finish for her charity the Mater Hospital’s Breast Cancer campaign.
Others went the distance before even touching the starting line in Dublin’s city centre, as Siobhan McCartan travelled down from Newry, Co Down, to support her charity – PIPS – suicide awareness and prevention.
“This is our first time to come down to raise funds,” she said, adding that she had lost two family members to suicide.
“People have been very supportive and very generous to our fundraising efforts. The sense of camaraderie down here is great. We’ll do it again, we may turn it into an annual event.”
Charities over a hundred miles away were set to benefit, with schoolgirls from Moville Community College in north Donegal, setting out to raise money for the Donegal Hospice.
Teacher Bridget Moohan said: “The girls choose the charity and this time they chose to do it for the hospice, for cancer care.”
She said it was all about fun, with some jogging it and others walking.
Four men from Dublin’s Dun Laoghaire managed to overcome their shyness to don mini-skirts and eye-liner to infiltrate the ranks.
But brothers Oisin, Aran and Leon Murray, and their friend Garret Ryan, left the high-heels at home as they set off to cat-calls and whistles.
Out to raise money for Breast Cancer charity and the Robert Simpson Trust Fund at the Mater Hospital, the gang were going to join their mother for the marathon.
“She’s delighted we are doing it,” Oisin said, joking: “She always wanted three girls anyway.
“This is our first year doing it but we’ll definitely be back again with bigger boobs next time.”
Adding to the carnival type atmosphere were the 14 bands playing at various points along the route and at the finish in St Stephen’s Green.
Ms MacNeill said the Flora mini-marathon was the largest all-woman event of its kind in the world.
The 10km event was won by Pauline Curley from the Tullamore Harriers in Co Offaly in a time of 35 minutes four seconds.
Organisers are hoping this year’s event will reach a milestone of €100m for charities since the event began. Since the event began in 1983 over €85m has been raised for Irish charities with over 560,000 participants in total over the years.
There were many traffic diversions in place in the city as the 10km route on the southside of the city takes in Mount Street reaches as far as St Vincent’s Hospital before going back to St Stephen’s Green via Stillorgan Road and Leeson Street.
