Irish TimesMonday, 13 June 2011.
Women on the run deserve more applause and toilets
Anne Marie Hourihane
The women’s mini marathon is not about who runs the fastest or looks the prettiest. It’s about turning up.
Liming along in the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon last week, a stranger to the hyphen, one could not help but reflect on the fabulousness of Irish females. Later in the week Irish men would be called the joint ugliest in the world – completely untrue- but it had started well for the girls.
The mini-marathon is not about who looks the prettiest – although some of the runners did look stunning. It’s not about who can run the fastest – unless you are Caitriona Jennings who finished the 10km course in 35 minutes and 28 seconds. Or Rosanna Davison, who ran it in under an hour (Respect. Sigh.) It’s about turning up. And so we small the first cigarette smoke before the race has even started, as the athletes wearing braycancersupport.ie T-shirts move through the crowd.
You know how it is; you have to have a cigarette just to prove to yourself that you can. Can’t really see fags being smoked at the beginning of the New York marathon, to cite just boringly conformist example, but in this crowd of 40,000 no one turns a hair. In fact as the day progresses marathon participants regularly drop out to have a cigarette. They become spectators for a few minutes, then join the river of women again.
The thing is, Irish people would die rather than look as if they were trying hard. This is why Irish men send to dating websites photos of themselves that were taken in the pub. And this is also (partly) why Irish women have a fag before, during and after a mini marathon.
Another reason for a having a fag at the start of the mini-marathon , is that the start is extremely stressful.
The entire length of Leeson Street seethed with people for the guts of an hour – we were told to be there at 2.30pm and we didn’t move off until, I think, 3.17pm. We were the joggers and walkers. The joggers were at first directed to the pavement which turns on to Fitzwilliam Street, separated from the rest of the huge crowd by a huge grille.
We queued like this for a while, until claustrophobia overwhelmed us and we bolted for the portable toilets in the lane near Coopers restaurant Never so glad to see a portable toilet in my life. Will run in aid of portable toilets next year.
Can’t really see fags being smoked at the beginning of the New York Marathon
It was only the patience and graciousness of the crowd that prevented something nasty happening. Such a huge crowd, so tightly packed, is impossible to marshal effectively. The high grille segregating the joggers from the rest was removed. The singing was impressive, but sporadic. Quite a lot of time was spent reading each other’s T-shirts: Cardiac Risk in the Young; Avon Breast Cancer Crusade; Thurles Friends of the Children of Chernobyl; Laura Lynn Hospice Foundation, Sandyford; Post Polio Support Group.
A friend of mine said she saw three women wearing T-shirts with Sex Works Alliance Ireland emblazoned upon them, and it is devoutly to be hoped that she did.
Most of the crowd here are walkers. This is wonderful in many ways. However it also means that, unless you are an elite runner in the front, you have to duck and weave through the walkers. The good runners slip through the crowd like the quick fish whizzing through a shoal of plodders. And now we come to the men. Quite a few men, running in drag. They were the most heavily made-up people of the day. One man ran in a demure beige two-piece, a blonde wig and flat and fashionable brown knee-high boots. He was a real lady. Unfortunately his feet started to kill him, poor thing. By Morehampton Road, which was very near the end, he was sitting it out and having a smoke.
Most of the male support for the participants came before and after the race, (and I would like to thank my coach). There was the devoted young husband/boyfriend who was holding his wife/girlfriend’s bag in the laneway in Leeson Street and who kissed her before she vanished into the crowd, but he was the exception. However, we would particularly like to thank the man who stood on a flat roof or balcony (when you’re travelling that fast, everything s a blur) in Mount Street and applauded us all as we went past. It really lifted the spirits. And the same goes to all the people – not that many of them actually – who came out to cheer.
Some 40,000 women, combined with strict instructions about hydration, is a recipe for disaster. It was good to see women running into the old Berkeley court Hotel, but the Merrion Centre quickly became overwhelmed. The queue for the toilets came half way up the conveyor belt escalator. A nice security man directed us round the corner, but the queues there were long already. Ran into St Vincent’s Hospital, with a few others, and used the toilet there. Never was an emergency department more aptly named.
Surely this situation – and the bands that play along the route, which are almost exclusively male – must be improved next year. This is the biggest all-women event in the world. Ah, but we don’t want to be making a big thing of it.