One of the pleasant surprises of Monday’s Dublin City Marathon, I thought, was how few participants were wearing headphones. Or maybe my impression of their rarity in the race was based on undue pessimism about how common they’ve become generally. In any case, they were fewer and farther between than I feared.
The crowds along the route were rightly praised, especially by the participants who had actually heard them. But I’ve been on both sides of the barriers in these mass-participation events, and I know that support is a two-way thing.
When you’re lining a route, especially in the underpopulated sections of a race where the lining is threadbare and every person counts, you like to feel your encouragement is in some way appreciated.
It doesn’t have to involve reciprocation, or even eye contact – although when running myself, I usually make a point of acknowledging conspicuous applause. I tend to be moving slowly enough to do so, after all. And it’s basic Irish manners, like thanking the bus driver.
The important thing is that the supporter needs to sense that a bit of noise might make a difference to the runner. So when you’re cheering somebody on and then you see the earphones he or she is using to zone you and other distractions out, well, the sound rather dies in your throat.
I can understand people using them on the treadmill, or on long, boring solo runs in the park – the kind of runs, in fact, that trainers for marathons have to do.
The problem is, some people get so used to having this non-stop soundtrack of heroic music in their ears that they can’t function without it in races. And not only is this profoundly anti-social, but if the races are on public roads, it can also be dangerous.
Anyway, I’m glad to say that, despite their general ubiquity, and the proximity to Halloween, headphone zombies were in the minority on Monday and the event was better for it.
I watched the marathon for a time among one of the bigger and noisier crowds, at Dolphin’s Barn. This was a turning point for the race in every sense. It was half-way, or near it, and it also involved a 90-degree change of direction from the South Circular Road, heading from Crumlin.
Suddenly, and for the next mile and a half, runners were going straight into a headwind, and uphill. So if you were having a bad day already, the prospect of another 13 miles must have been truly depressing at this point.
Yet even as a member of the crowd, I found myself uplifted by the noise around me. And why any competitors would deliberately cut themselves off from that is mystifying.
Mind you, I’m almost as mystified – this time in an admiring way – by the people who wear fancy dress in a marathon. Completing a 26-mile course seems to me more than enough of a challenge without extraneous items of clothing, some of them not designed for aerodynamics.
And then there’s the question of staying in character. As it did in the case of the late Brian Tyrrell, a serial wearer of disguise in races including the Dublin Marathon, the fancy dress habit also confers a responsibility to appear cheerful at all times, even when hitting the wall.
All right, maybe that wasn’t required with one of Tyrrell’s more famous disguises, when he ran the London Marathon as a post-execution Sir Walter Raleigh, head tucked under his arm.
But there and elsewhere, by all accounts, Brian really was a relentlessly cheerful man. He remained so despite the long illnesses of his later years. On one of his last public appearances, at the St Patrick’s Festival 5km last March, he had to complete the course in a wheelchair. And even then, he maintained his reputation by dressing as the saint himself.
He died in August, but is expected to be among the presiding spirits at another 5km race in Dublin next month. Now in its third year, the Remembrance Run attracts participants, athletic and otherwise, whose main motivation is to honour departed loved ones. In the process, they usually raise funds for a related charity.
This year’s run takes place in the Phoenix Park on November 9th. Among the field will be two daughters of Brian Tyrrell, Fran and Louise. You too can enter via remembrance.ie. And of course, bearing in mind that the Park is one of Dublin’s more sparsely populated suburbs, supporters will also be very welcome.
@FrankmcnallyIT