Marathon 2010

The Dublin City Marathon happens every Bank Holiday Monday in the last week in October. I always remember that because it was always the first badminton competition of the season on that weekend, and that was always held in Terenure badminton club, where I was a member.

Any year I got to a final in that competition, you’d have to walk past the marathon road blocks to get to the hall, and every year the marathon has gone past our family home in Templeogue College. It’s always seemed like a huge achievement to me, that anyone could possibly run 26.2 miles. The only time in my life that I would have been remotely near fit enough to have run a marathon was when I was actually playing in those badminton competititons, when I was about 15. That’s now 14 years ago, and since I gave up badminton at the age of 16, I’ve done pretty much no exercise whatsoever, bar the occasional trip to the gym, usually in early January as part of my New Years Resolution.

So, why, having done no meaningful sustained exercise for the last 13 years, am I now trying to run the Marathon. Like many people, I suspect, to prove to myself that I can. And, more importantly, to get fit and health in the process of training for the marathon. I’ve lived a pretty unhealthy last decade. My diet has been appalling, my exercise regime non existant and my general approach to my own well being, well, not great.

One of the things I was determined to do when I quit being a lawyer in February 2009 was to get fit. As of 1 November 2009, I hadn’t even gotten started. So, on the 28th of October 2009, the day of the Dublin City Marathon 2009, I decided enough was enough, and that I was going to stop talking about doing it, and do it. Lots of my friends (Mike, Aisling, Paul, Brian) have done it, and I was so proud of them when they had, but I was equally disappointed with myself for never having the motivation or will power to do it. So now I am.

But why blog about it and tell the world about it? 10,000 people run it every year, it’s hardly worth making a big song and dance about right? Yes, totally. But the blog is as much for me as it is for everyone else. I need motivating. I wish I didn’t, but I do. And knowing that I have to write a diary every day about my training and what I have, or more importantly, haven’t done, motivates me. Knowing that people are reading about it, or following it, that motivates me to. So yes, I’m shamelessly asking people to follow me and support me, so that I can stick with this and see it too.

Finally there’s the charity! I’ll eventually be harassing everyone I know, and many people that I don’t, to sponsor my marathon run. I’m hoping to raise as much money as I can for the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland and for Crumlin Hospital, both of which have played a big part in the life of my extended family and which deserve and need all the cash they can get.

So, please feel free to pass the website on and to tell people about it. Who knows, somebody may find watching me torture myself for the next year interesting or entertaining or both!!