PresentTense:There won't be spectators at tomorrow's Dublin Port Tunnel run. There's not much room once you squeeze 10,000 runners through the concrete artery. Besides, you suspect that most Dubliners will pass on the opportunity of watching several thousand people jammed in, occasionally bumping against one another, never going much faster than about 7 miles an hour. Once the tunnel opens to traffic, they'll get to see that most days.
Still, it will be quite a sight come 11am, when 10,000 heads will bob into the orange gloom. Some will be in wheelchairs, plenty will walk, but most will run (and maybe walk again). Participants will get a happy couple of kilometres downhill before a three-kilometre incline delivers them out into 50 metres of whatever foulness the Irish weather can offer. They'll get a glance at the M1 stretching off towards Dundalk, before they do what many people do when they see that road: turn around and go back the way they came.
All the while the greatest danger will be posed by people running with their heads pointed upwards, and around, rather than ahead. Or from those squinting around in the hope of spotting one of the supposed leaks that have allegedly made the tunnel the Niagara of the Northside.
It will be quite a day. A gathering of those disparate souls who can be seen lolloping around the country's streets, strands and fields on any given day. Those who head out in shorts and a light T-shirt on the kind of wild nights when walking from your front door to the car is a treacherous journey.
They'll come together, and jog gently about so as to keep the winter from gnawing at their enthusiasm. Then they'll pile up at the start line and head off silently, save for the slap of 20,000 feet on tarmac. There will be 10,000 Irish in one spot, yet hardly a word spoken between them. What's more, there will be 10,000 Irish simultaneously trying to think of a witty nickname for the tunnel. At least one will emerge with a decent candidate.
I may be wrong, but the port tunnel run might be the second largest single sporting event in the country this year. The largest will have been October's Dublin City Marathon, which pips it by a few hundred. For a few decades now, running (purists hate to call it "jogging") has been a growing sport, and is accelerating at a pace faster than most of those who practise it.
As a recreation it increasingly matches the times. It is individualistic: the runner sets the training time; heads out alone; requires nothing but a pair of runners and a hardy diligence. Ambition is wholly personal: even in the largest races, it is likely the runner will compete with no one but himself. And here's a sport in which, miracle of miracles, you can actually improve as you get older. That's quite an attraction to those who would ordinarily drop out of sport once their age caught up with their waist size.
Tomorrow's distance will be the most many will have run. Once their legs rebel or sense interjects, some will never run so far again. But plenty will step up to the marathon, an event now popular enough that, in the case of the New York race, there are so many applicants - almost twice the 50,000 accepted - that there is a black market in entries, and some resort to using counterfeit numbers.
The arrival of so many "newbies" doesn't please everybody. A marathon purist, Gabriel Sherman, recently complained on Slate.com that the "slowpokes" were ruining it for the serious runners; that taking on one of sport's greatest challenges has become just another thing for many people to tick off the list of things to do before they die.
In 1980, the average finishing time for an American male marathon runner was 3:32. Now it is over 4:20. "It's clear now that anyone can finish a marathon," Sherman wrote, "maybe it's time we raise our standards to see who can run one."
At which - while blowing hard and gasping for water - the "slowpokes" shouted down such snobbery. Because they recognise that running is the most democratic of sports.
Before this year's New York marathon, Eamonn Coghlan reminded the team he brings annually from Ireland that, while they may never run out to a full crowd at Croke Park, being greeted by a million spectators on First Avenue would be one of the greatest moments of their lives. And the race itself was a reminder of the beauty of a sport in which a 50-something ordinary Joe can line up alongside world champion, Olympic champion, world record holder, five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and Keith Duffy from Boyzone.
It's like a hacker joining Tiger Woods on the first tee of the US Open. Or a retired mother of three parking her Micra alongside Michael Schumacher on the grid in Monaco.
Although, closer to home, and speaking perhaps most clearly of the sport's popularity, is how the Irish personal ads increasingly feature pleas for jogging partners. Which is, I trust, not a euphemism for anything else.
