Many entrants will complete the race without ever once having both feet off the ground, writes Emmet Malone
While the majority of the 11,000 or so entrants for this year's Dublin marathon will have included walking as part of their training only when they were incapable of hauling themselves around a few miles at a trot, more than a thousand people will set off to complete the race without ever once having both feet off the ground.
Hal Higdon, who has completed more than 100 marathons and, it seems, written almost as many books about running, devotes just a couple of pages in his "ultimate training guide" to walking. And although he's generally upbeat about those who seek to complete the course this way, he does rather casually suggest that anyone could turn up on the day and walk 26.2 miles as long as they had eight hours or so to do it.
It's not a theory that many are likely to put to the test at the end of next month. While most of those intending to run the distance are already having to set aside the guts of one of their weekend days so as to hit the roads for three hours or more, walkers know the meaning of real commitment.
"My own routine would involve four walks during the week of between 60 and 90 minutes with a considerably longer one at the weekend," says Mary Coughlan, a three-time marathon veteran who has run a meet-and-train group near her home in Kingswood Heights, Tallaght for the past 15 years.
"The first marathon I did took six hours 40, the second six 10 so you've got to prepare yourself to be going for at least that sort of time and, just like for the runners, that requires a willingness to make a significant commitment," she says.
The story of how Coughlan came to make her own commitment is not, she believes, an uncommon one. She started to exercise more regularly back in 1987, "because I was overweight after having had four kids". By 1989, she adds, however, "I was getting fitter but fatter."
She then went to Weight Watchers and the only exercise they recommended was walking which she began to concentrate on more exclusively. Over the next six months she lost three stone through a combination of better diet and walking.
These days the activity is both work and recreation for her. Her job is with the fundraising unit at Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin which will take in something of the order of €500,000 from walking events and walkers this year alone.
Then, in her spare time, Coughlan trains and runs the group, which meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, training for an hour or so each time.
"The routine now generally involves training for the mini-marathon from March until June and then looking to start getting your distances up over the course of the summer. I generally look to do the race series as well. You meet other walkers up in the Phoenix Park and the half-marathon gives you a pretty good idea of how you are fixed to get around the full distance a month or so later."
While somebody from her group is training for the marathon, Coughlan herself will head for San Diego in mid-October where, as part of a Crumlin-organised fundraiser, she will walk 20km a day for five days.
She is generally positive about the attitude of the Dublin race organisers towards walkers although her views aren't universally shared with some others who feel they are no more than "tolerated" after taking part themselves in recent years.
"I think that some people feel a little hard done by because of what they used to have," says race director Jim Aughney. "They used to get a two-hour start on the runners so that a lot of them would come in at around the same time and that certainly helps because there are still a lot of spectators and they feel far more a part of it all.
"There were problems, though, not least with runners trying to pass them out and the walkers not hearing the runners approaching from behind. In the end we took a decision, based partly on the advice of the Garda, that everyone should start together but we still keep the course open for eight hours to facilitate them which is far longer than would be the case in a lot of cities abroad."
Aughney reckons that 1,200-1,500 will walk the Dublin course this year, a number that is boosted significantly by members of charity groups from the United States and Canada, who also bring with them friends and family members whose support is also much appreciated by the locals.
There could clearly, however, be more walkers, with some of those who consider stepping up from more casual recreation walking to training for something like a marathon frustrated by the lack of obvious support.
"There was a group of us considering doing it a few months back," says Delores Barnwell, a Limerick- based Dubliner who got in touch at the start of this series, "but we couldn't really find anybody who would do out a programme for us and maybe provide a bit of guidance.
"It's hugely popular," she says, "I mean, you see the women walking absolutely everywhere, it's just a pity that there isn't something a little more structured support for them to drop into."
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