MY MINI MARATHON:'Woman of the year' takes to the streets in aid of cystic fibrosis
WE HUDDLED at the beginning as the rain got heavier. I suppose it was my own fault really for cursing the oppressively hot weekend and the rain storm of the following days. I wanted something in between for my mini marathon; it would be my third time lucky, after all.
There really was no excuse for rain, but there it was. Lashing down upon us as we haggled with the man selling ponchos to try to give us an extra one.
“But she’s the woman of the year,” said my friend. We weren’t prepared for the extra expenditure (€5 for a poncho) once past the barriers, or in the crowds bumping off each other to get to the front line. I don’t usually allow for such, er, labelling but if it stops the pneumonia setting in.
The poncho seller was not so receptive and said being man of the year might mean something, but woman of the year didn’t quite deserve a free poncho. Perhaps a more than unusually stupid thing to say surrounded by some 40,000 women.
My friend went without hers and I stayed dry as we waited and waited . . . “Give it up for the girls,” a voice boomed Oz-like above the crowd. After 30 minutes of waiting it was finally time to start and once past the huge yellow and green markers on either side of the starting line we were zooming to another universe.
The cigarettes wafting around the air were extinguished and the elbowing stopped as reams of smiling women waved each other off saying “good luck”. I hugged my friends who were walking and set off. Running the first 2km was like driving a bumper car, swooping in front and behind different coloured T-shirts.
Occasionally people paused or I went too fast causing near body crashes. The manoeuvring was an art, I discovered, as I eluded a group of girls who ended up in a pile for a few seconds before hopping up, hugging and moving on.
I realised quickly at my 3km in 16 minutes that I was breathing too heavily and had run on adrenaline at a ridiculous pace that would leave me keeled over if I continued.
When people set off smiling, it was hard not to follow them. I reeled myself in every few metres making sure I was going slow enough. A quick grab of a water bottle past the musicians on Merrion Road helped and I walked for a while until it came to shooting past Vincent’s hospital and up Nutley Lane.
The water bottles themselves decorated the gutters and required the occasional hop as they had a tendency of skidding across the concourse. The dreaded hill I had been fretting about wasn’t such a big deal, but on the stretch from RTÉ to UCD my legs felt like heavy weights. Every so often I dotted the ground with a little mucus, but my hour of physiotherapy in the morning and half-hour before the race kept me clear enough.
The woman handing out slices of orange on the Stillorgan dual carriage way was like an injection of adrenaline. Once I passed the 7km mark I felt home free, and I had to keep reminding myself, it was a bit smarmy. There was a bit to go yet, so I walked that kilometre and tucked into a handful of the sneaky gummy bears I had saved for this exact time.
With calves aching and shoulders humping, I waved to an old man sitting on a wooden chair outside his apartment complex. His hands were leaning on his stick and his daughter’s on his shoulder. “Go on girl! Keep going!” he shouted as I waved.
He was one of so many just cheering us on, despite the rain and we needed it. The last 2km were the hardest. A sudden glimpse of an orange shirt that matched my own kept me going.
The vision of women walking towards the group with their medal already won put fuel in my engine, but my legs felt like bricks.
Other women sprinted at the sight, some walked faster, and we dragged each other onwards.
At this stage I was manically smiling which somehow soothed my aching calves. I smiled at the waving faces under their umbrellas, at the guys from the garage hosing us down as we passed, at the throngs of, er, Clowns For Haiti who threatened to knock us over with their demonstrations and excessive smile-iness. It was relatively easy, the whole affair.
The finish line was a thrilling sight as I threw my guts into the final half kilometre and, as I crossed the line, I just wanted to keep going. Girl Power.