Paul O'Doherty entered last week's Dublin Marathon, following years of physical inactivity. The experience was a bruising and salutary lesson
Back in January, February and March I wrote a small column for this paper - An Irishman's Diet - tying together the various threads, thoughts and nightmares of an ordinary guy trying to lose weight. I was over 18 stone, dying a slow death in the graveyard of obesity, and felt it was time to do something about it.
The writing angle was novel. Usually, most people hide their diets under their pillows, confessing to giving up the chocolate when the weight police tell you "you're looking well" or ask astonishingly, "My God, have you lost weight?"
I went in the opposite direction. Tell everybody I was on a diet and then post it in the paper. Along the way Liberties Press came on board and bang, An Irishman's Diet had a book deal. In a moment of bravado, I bragged "sure, wouldn't it be great if in the last chapter I ran the marathon".
Idle words soon forgotten until two weeks ago when, behind with the book and wondering would I ever get it finished, the marathon promise got a bit bolshie in my head space.
Against a library of medical books and journals, doctor's advice and my poor wife's tears, I was the ultimate in selfishness and put my health and our future on the line for the art of finishing a bloody book.
It seemed important to me. Since Christmas I'd lost about a stone, was fitter than I was and definitely eating a lot better. And over the past 10 months, although suffering from a sciatic back problem that refused to go away, I'd exercised more often than occasionally.
A week before the marathon and tipping the scales at around 17 and a half stone, my training began. Up in the gym, I cycled 10km on a bike for 25 minutes, followed by a 5km 40-minute walk-cum-run, ending with 10 minutes of stretching.
Surprisingly, my back didn't give in and I didn't get that knuckle-like abrasive pain that usually burrows into the left cheek of my bum, and I felt pretty okay. The only problem I experienced was some dizziness immediately after exercise (worrying in itself) and a dizzying headache that lasted from the Friday until about seven miles into the marathon on the Monday. Otherwise, for seven days I went to the gym and followed this simple regime.
By Monday morning, having ignored my wife's repeated pleas to drop out, I stood on the starting line at 8.55am in Nassau Street wondering would I ever finish the race. Serious premonitions had consumed my weekend about something bad happening to me and in the darkest reaches of my mind I sensed I was in the middle of a gun fight.
I've ran about eight marathons in my life, and in all my years running I'd never hit "the wall", always finished with a sprint and generally completed around the three and a quarter hour mark.
These experiences were, however, nearly 20 years ago when I was younger, fitter, four stone lighter and a brick wall of determination. Standing in my fancy and expensive runners at the corner of Grafton Street at 9am as the marathon rolled over the starting line, all I had left was my determination.
I ran the first few miles at around five miles per hour to the gates of the Phoenix Park. I was comfortable and measured. My back didn't pain me and my legs were okay.
My only concern was my headache that refused to go away. On the journey a 60-year-old man had fallen in front of me and got back on his feet and there were already queues for the toilets. As an Ethiopian in her togs walked back to the start, a Dubliner to my right raised a laugh when he suggested: "Bloody elite athletes, no willpower."
Halfway through the park I slowed and walked for a mile. Chapelizod, Inchicore and Dolphin's Barn were difficult, and by the time I was struggling past Crumlin, the race had been won and I was psychologically in bits. My wife had made me bring the price of a fare in my shorts, in case the opportunity arose to jump on a bus. Sadly, no bikes, buses or cars seemed to be going my direction.
By halfway, I had a bit more resolution and got myself through the worst in my head and was walking my way to a six-hour finish. At Fosters' Avenue, a Canadian told her friend she'd never again complain about bad sex, as I painfully struggled through the last six miles, my legs sore, fatigued and out of it.
The rest of my body, however, was fine and entering the last bend on the 26th mile I let rip and sprinted across the finish. My time was clocked at six hours, 30 minutes and 55 seconds. I'd lost a half a stone on my travels (mostly fluid).
A week on, my body has recovered, save for the moderate to severe blistering on my feet, and runner Michael Morgan is dead. He was a man in his 40s who collapsed three hours into the race, after becoming unwell about the 15-16 mile mark. Never having met the man I don't know what he was like and I didn't see much about him in the papers. Sad to say, while most runners were painfully experiencing the joy of finishing a marathon, another was dying for his sport.
For a long time as I struggled with my lack of fitness, stupidity and utter selfish bravado, I thought it was going to be me. It's not a comfortable warning but a warning nonetheless.