An Irishman's Diary

TRUNDLING around the back roads of Dunboyne the other night in a five-mile road race, I found myself marvelling at the strange topography of south Co Meath. It was in many ways the perfect running route.

Although only minutes out of Dublin, we were already in deep countryside. Roads were devoid of traffic, except for the odd, unthreatening car. Birdsong serenaded us from the hedgerows, which were themselves bursting with the joys of early summer.

In lieu of water stations, friendly locals along the route offered drinks to any athletes or middle-aged masochists who needed them. And the course was friendly too. For one thing, it was roughly horse-shoe shaped: full of gentle bends that always turned for home. But what really set it apart as a runner’s paradise was that the entire route seemed to be downhill.

This was technically possible, in that the start and finish were separate. Yet I don’t remember getting a ski-lift or doing any strenuous climbing beforehand as we made our way from Dunboyne Athletic Club to the place of departure. So the route’s apparently constant descent from Point A back to Point A must either have been a geographical feature unique to this part of the world, or a very pleasant illusion.

Maybe this was the opposite of those places in Ireland where, because of a trick of hedgerow geometry, water or a car with the handbrake off appears to run uphill. If so, it was even more impressive. Because as all cyclists and runners know, normally, uphill stretches (and headwinds) have a habit of exaggerating themselves, rather than the reverse.

Anyway, the gradient was so undemanding that instead of having to psyche myself up with running mantras (Samuel Beckett’s catchy existentialist slogan “I can’t go on. I’ll go on” is always useful), I was able to enjoy the area’s bucolic charms. Even the faint of smell of slurry seemed almost refreshing.

The feeling of having left the city far behind had been added to, incidentally, by the epic sign-posting organised for drivers heading to the race. I don’t know if this was the work of Dunboyne AC or the Government Services running group, who were joint hosts. Whoever it was, the system was utterly idiot-proof.

From the moment you left the M3, at every turn, there was a sign either pointing you the right way or reassuring you that you hadn’t gone wrong since the last sign. This was a rare luxury in rural Ireland, where opportunities to get hopelessly lost are still endless. A journey with as many signposts as there were to Dunboyne AC would usually take you across the Shannon, at least.

And yet the townlands through which we ran later reminded you this was still the Pale. There are no Ballys in this part of Meath. Instead, the course wound through Oranstown, Milestown, Walterstown, Jarrettstown, and possibly a few other towns en route. The sole exception to this procession of town-names was the “Moor of Meath”, which we bypassed on the southern end of the course.

The Moor of Meath sounds like a Shakespearian character. And as a place long synonymous with hunting and other bloodsports, it has seen some dramas in its time. In fact, in this newspaper’s archive a while ago, I found a very entertaining court case about an illegal boxing match held there way back in 1878.

It involved two men called Boylan and Keogh, both from Dublin. I’m guessing Boylan lost the fight, because even though the court hearing happened almost a month later, his face was said to be still “hideously swollen, bruised and battered, while his eyes were scarcely open”. The report added that “two of his ribs were also broken”. By comparison, Keogh seemed to have got off lightly, being only “much disfigured”.

The fight had been rumbled when policemen arrived and one, “a very good runner”, gave chase to a carriage fleeing the scene towards Clonsilla. But the magistrate struggled to get any useful information out of witnesses, including a man who, asked to kiss the Bible before giving evidence, was seen to kiss his own thumb, in a vain attempt to avoid swearing.

I reminded myself of that story in the last mile of Tuesday night’s race when – despite the gradient – tiredness and the temptation to stop set in, as it always does. You have to think positive thoughts at such times. And I found that reflecting again on the state of Boylan made me relatively healthy.

Then, in a final stroke of genius, the organisers arranged that the course would culminate in a lap of the Dunboyne running track. And there’s something about the appearance of a running track at the end of a road race that, however exhausted you may be, unleashes your inner Olympian. Before I knew it, my outer cart-horse had somehow produced a finishing kick and, when it had stopped retching at the end, joined the happy throng of finishers admiring their times.

Thanks to the generosity of the Meath countryside, there were many personal bests, or “PBs”. Mine wasn’t quite in that category: I’m still several minutes (and 20 years) above my all-time best for the distance. But this was at least a post mid-life-crisis record. It was also the fastest time that the 21st century and I have yet managed together. And the great thing is that at least one of us is still young.

fmcnally@irishtimes.com