I learned too late that I was suffering from jogger's nipple. "Half-way there," the onlookers cried, as I - and 6,499 others - drudged through Kimmage last bank holiday Monday. According to my last remaining brain cell, that meant 13 miles to go: 13 miles with searing, red-hot nipples. It was my first - and last - Dublin City Marathon.
Only after crossing the finish line was my condition diagnosed. "Oh yeah, jogger's nipple," said the rat-pack of well-wishing friends who hadn't run a step since primary school sports day, 1979. Until I said I was taking part in it, most of them thought the Dublin City Marathon had been renamed the Dublin City Snickers some time in the mid-1980s. Now I had completed the race, they had suddenly become experts in sports psychology, physiotherapy and medicine. "You should have taped them up." "Elastoplast." "Sellotape." "A bra." "You'll feel better after a cup of tea."
Up in the dark
How come nobody mentioned this beforehand? But then there were a lot of things I didn't know beforehand. For anybody thinking of ever undertaking this race, you should know that you have to get up in the dark, be in O'Connell Street at 7.30 a.m., and stand around for an hour in running gear telling Americans about the Ann Summers adult shop while waiting for the race to begin. If you are prepared for these privations, consult the route carefully before you commit yourself; a quick glance masks its many twists and turns. For example, when running up Leeson Street towards Stephen's Green, you think you're almost in town, a vital psychological milestone. But suddenly a man with a red flag and a sick sense of humour directs everybody down towards Baggot Street and back up the canal, only to rejoin Leeson Street at almost the same point you left it, 10 minutes later. And a tip for anybody whose house is on the marathon route: stand outside cheering and clapping. This not only gives much-needed encouragement to the weary runners; it prevents blokes using your garden wall as a urinal.
But my greatest ignorance was not knowing the length of a piece of string. One warm summer evening, I had sat down and devised a training programme. This is a bit like a study plan for the Leaving Cert. You spend more time planning fanciful schedules than on actual preparation. I certainly had to, because every week I'd throw away the one I'd failed to stick to over the previous seven days and draw up a tougher, more condensed regime.
With one week to go, I decided to take stock of the situation with a map, ruler and piece of string, and quickly calculated that the farthest I had run in one go was about 10 miles. Too little, too late. For a moment, I wished I was doing the Leaving Cert; at least you can cram.
Encouragement
Early in the race, none of this seemed to matter. Participants gambolled along, nattering with people next to them, waving to the picketing nurses outside St Vincent's. Everywhere were bystanders, boosting the runners with words of encouragement. As time went on, these helped buoy sinking spirits. My favourites were near the end: a group of elderly women on the road to Ballyfermot, who, armed with hand-held windmills and bells, danced to the strains of Hooray for the Red White and Blues (better known to most people as Here We Go) from a ghettoblaster.
Funny how the mind works in the final stages. During the last three miles, from Chapelizod to the city quays, all you can see on the left-hand side is the continuous grey wall that runs along the southern boundary of the Phoenix Park. Wall, wall and more wall. With such a visual trigger, it's not surprising that that was where a lot of people hit the dreaded marathon runner's "wall". Within a few minutes, my estimated time of arrival went from an optimistic 12.30 p.m. to wondering if I'd make it home for Christmas dinner. My entire body seemed to consist of two battered knees carrying two burning nipples. Running became agony. Try walking. Equally torturous. I think I'll stop. Cue muscle convulsions. Beforehand, I had thought the marathon was not about running 26 miles 385 yards, but about getting up early to go for a trek around the park before work, or squelching around the streets on dark autumn nights when you'd rather be in watching TV, or suppressing cigarette urges when socialising, and giving up booze for the month of October. In the end, it was all about those last three gruelling miles.
"You can do it"
Only the American woman behind me giving herself a pep-talk kept me going. "Come on baby. Power. You can do it. Come on. Beautiful power." If I didn't get 100 yards away from that, I would have vomited.
Towards the finish, everybody seemed to get a little fillip, hurrying on down to Bargaintown and skipping merrily up the quays. On O'Connell Street, I got a pain in my heart. No, not nipple problems: heart pain. Panicking and knowing nothing about breathing techniques, I tried breathing the way women in labour do on TV: Hoo, hoo, hah. Hoo, hoo, hah. And I pushed. And I huffed. And I puffed. And I made it. It was over.
Bob was my uncle. Agony was my aunt. A week later, she still is.