A year ago Dervilla Hynes could barely speak and struggled to walk. Twelve months on, the 30-year-old Mayo woman stands purposely on the start line of the Vhi Women's Mini Marathon ready to run the 10km route.
Hynes was working as a music therapist with the Music Generation programme in Co Mayo when she had a seizure in work. She was brought to hospital where she learned she had a brain tumour. Hynes then suffered a stroke during the surgery to remove the tumour and lost the ability to talk and balance on her right side.
"It's been a year-and-a-half of trying to get back to normal. I've not gotten there yet but I will. I've come on a lot, but the support at home is ridiculous. That's what's making me go for the mini-marathon," she said. Hynes was running to raise funds for Brain Tumour Ireland.
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Hynes’s experience of illness and recovery was just one of the many stories that brought 33,000 women to Dublin’s city centre on Monday to take part in the 2017 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon. The streets around Fitzwilliam and Merrion Squares were filled with excitement as groups from across the country prepared to walk, jog and run the 10km race, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year.
Before the race, Jamie Slack Fitzpatrick and her friends gathered outside the National Gallery dressed in T-shirts with the name Aoife O’Keane printed across the back.
“We’re running for Epilepsy Ireland because our best friend passed away in November from epilepsy,” explained Slack Fitzpatrick. “This is our tribute to Aoife.” The group had already raised €5,000 for the charity by Monday morning and hope to continue raising funds for people living with epilepsy around the country.
"Aoife lived an amazing life, she went all over the world. She was 25 and had just come back from New Zealand. We want to let people who have been diagnosed know that there is a lot of help and services out there."
Further down the road, the Dodd and Donovan families donned bright red T-shirts with the photograph of an attractive young blonde woman printed on the back. “That’s Sabrina Donovan,” said Gary James, as he lead the group past Merrion Square. “She passed away four months ago so we’re doing this for her.”
Merlena Dodd, Sabrina’s aunt, explained how her 39-year-old niece died from a rare form of cancer called NK/T-cell lymphoma.
“The Irish Bone Marrow for Leukaemia Trust was the closest charity to what she had so we raised money for them.”
Dodd and her niece had often talked about running the mini-marathon to raise money for Alzheimer’s disease. “We always said we’d do it but then forgot. So this year I said we’re doing it. She would have been 40 this Friday.
“It’s very inspirational looking at everybody getting out for charities. You think you’re the only one going through this but then you realise there are others too. It’s very touching.”
Amelia Sorohan and Kate Roandazzo from Australia, and Pamela Iyer from the UK, were dressed in black and white repeal the Eighth Amendment T-shirts. All three women, who have lived in Ireland for more than a decade, said they want to ensure their Irish daughters have "a full set of human rights".
“How can a country have a gay taoiseach and not the ability to provide decent basic human rights?” asked Roandazzo. “My dad is from an immigrant Italian family, a very strong Catholic. I’m also a Catholic myself and he told me, ‘I don’t understand it. How can you have a gay prime minister but women don’t have the right to be treated properly in hospitals?’”
Race winner
The winner of Monday's race was Ann-Marie McGlynn from Strabane in Co Tyrone who crossed the finish line in a time of 00.33.55. She was followed by Laura Shaughnessy from Rathfarnham in Dublin who came second and Catherina Mullen from Dunboyne, Co Meath in third place. Sinéad Kane from Youghal, Co Cork, won the visually impaired category in a time of 00.46.08.
Kathy Enderson, chief executive of the women’s mini-marathon, congratulated the thousands of participants for their involvement in the race and dedication to fundraising for charities. Chief executive of Vhi Healthcare John O’Dwyer said the event helped promote health and fitness while raising funds for hundreds of worthwhile causes.
Next year’s mini-marathon will be held on the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend and is scheduled for June 3rd, 2018.
