The legions of people you see at marathons in the brightly coloured T-shirts emblazoned with the name of some charity or other pretty much always fall into one of two categories: those who were running a marathon anyway and decided to use it as an opportunity to raise some money for a favourite charity and those who were motivated exclusively by the desire to generate some cash to get their runners on.
Ronan Doohan, a Dublin-based Clare man who ran Dublin last year, falls into the latter category having decided to take part only after his newly born son, Senan, had required major surgery at Temple Street and he became aware first hand of the hospital's need to generate funds.
"There's no way really that I would have done it otherwise," he says, "but I knew they were looking for volunteers for the marathon and I decided to do something to help out."
Doohan, in his late 30s, wasn't remotely fit at the time, but within six weeks he ran seven miles for the first time. "I couldn't believe I could do it," he recalls, although his achievements on the fundraising front were to prove even more remarkable.
Aside from signing friends and neighbours up as sponsors in the usual way, he auctioned two tickets for the All Ireland Hurling final on Newstalk and raised over €1,000; he ran a competition among workmates in AIB bank centre to guess how many jelly beans were in a large jar and brought in €700 or so; while fundraisers run by his parents back at home in Clare and his wife, Caitriona, in Derry brought in several thousand euro between them. His employers sponsored him and he got a grant from the bank-backed Better Ireland Fund.
In all, having set out to raise €4,000 he ended up generating more than €11,000, something that hugely enhanced an experience that most first timers expect to find gruelling.
"There was a huge sense of achievement that I was running for a good cause," he recalls. "I had the charity's name and my name on the front and back of my shirt and the response I got from people as I ran past was really incredible."
He's running again this year but admits that it is nigh on impossible to tap into people's generosity to the same extent the second time around.
"I don't think I could repeat last year's performance. Even if you put in the same amount of sustained work you get a lot of things because of the goodwill that comes with doing something for the first time. I was hugely grateful for the response last year and if I can achieve my original target this time around I'd be happy. Ultimately, every little bit helps."
With almost a month still to go before the Dublin race and websites such as mycharity.ie making it easier to fund raise for registered charities of all types, there's still time to raise a little money, whether it's few hundred or a few thousand, for a really worthwhile cause.
Emmet Malone