High on emotion after marathon effort in Dublin

It was cold, agreed the runners who riverdanced and stretched on the spot to keep themselves limber as the first north-easterly of the winter made icy the morning air, but at least it was dry.

But of course it wasn’t dry because tears of every description spilled on to the streets along the route of the 39th Dublin Marathon.

Tears of pain as muscles that began begging for pity six miles earlier became too much to bear. Tears of relief as the finish line and helping hands came into sight. Tears of unadulterated joy for those who achieved their goal and then some.

Lizzie Lee fell into that category — right about the time she fell to her knees as she crossed the finish line, the thrill of her achievement overwhelming her.

The 38-year-old Cork runner from Leevale Athletics cried and laughed and cried some more. “I’m really emotional. It’s all happy tears,” she declared.

“I’m an Irish woman and a man yelled at me at Clonskeagh around mile 19, you’re doing the Irish proud. I said, I have to get on this podium, I just have to.”

Picture: Inpho

And she did, taking third place in the women’s race after two of Ethiopia’s finest, and the national women’s title too.

Her coach, fellow Cork athlete and Olympian, Donie Walsh, won the national men’s title in 1972 and she wanted to do this not only for herself but for him too and for race director, Jim Aughney, who she credited with backing her in the early days of motherhood when few believed she could be a contender again.

“The hug from him at the finish line — I covered his jacket in snot,” she beamed.

I’m a mum of two small girls and I work full time and running is my hobby and I’m on a podium with two Ethiopian girls. To get on the podium, an Irish woman on the overall podium, I’m pinching myself, I’m thrilled.

She was also thrilled for Mick Clohisey, winner of the men’s national title, who was also out-paced by the all-conquering Ethiopians but managed an impressive sixth place overall.

“I said to him at the start, let’s make Donie and Dick proud,” she said, Dick being Dick Hooper, Mick’s coach and himself a winner of the event three times in the 1980s. “I’m delighted.”

It was a fitting display of delight for a year in which the race decided to honour women participants who numbered just 70 in the first race in 1980 but who yesterday made up 7,000 of the 20,000 runners.

Their finishers’ medals featured Constance Markievicz who may have used something stronger a starting gun in her time but was way ahead of the pack in encourage female participation in her own field.

For one family at the race, it was all about one little girl, their own hero, Alanna Russell, who became the youngest finisher ever at the age of eight when her dad, Keith, pushed her past the finish line last year in her specially adapted race chair.

Alanna, who had spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, died last December but her dad ran yesterday in her memory, tears tumbling as he received the Lord Mayor’s Medal and a framed copy of her finish line photo and the number 141 which she wore on that happy day and which has been retired in her honour. “This is for Alanna. This is her medal. This is what she has done, this is her achievement,” he wept.

Other competitors knew all too well the triumph that taking part represents when your body gives you extra challenges but having cleared every obstacle to win the wheelchair race for the last four years, Patrick Monahan decided to set the bar higher.

“He said he didn’t have enough competition so would I come over and race him,” grinned Johnboy Smith from England — who did just that and beat his longtime friend and rival into second place. “I’m not sure if he regrets that now.”

Patrick graciously conceded Smith was the better man this time around, but word is, there’s a rematch on the cards.