More than 10,000 runners take to the streets on Monday in the capital's ultimate endurance test, the 26.2-mile race. Getting to the finishing line is a victory in itself, writes Ian O'Riordan.
Just like the story behind the original marathon, there's a certain amount of myth surrounding the first running of 26.2 miles around Dublin city. The legend is that somehow it was retracing some great feat of endurance, inspired perhaps by some lonesome runner who, having covered the distance, also expired his last. As well he might.
The truth is far less dramatic, and had very little to do with running long distances. Dublin's first marathon owes its origins to an international cricket umpire, a new pop station and a holiday in New York. Plus the then-strange new sporting concept known as mass participation.
When the gun sounds on Nassau Street at 9 a.m. on Monday and 10,500 runners set off on this year's Dublin marathon, the idea of letting so many people loose on the city streets will seem perfectly normal. As will the idea of running 26.2 miles, with only a few wondering whether they'll ever make it that far. It's the 25th edition of the event and everyone involved will be whistling while they work.
Not so on the October bank holiday Monday of 1980. For a start, Dublin had found itself staging the first mass participation marathon in Europe. The idea of running 26.2 miles was still reserved for the half-mad and half-starved. And almost all the 2,100 people taking part were wondering whether they'd make it.
If they'd known exactly how the race had come about then it's more likely they would have stayed at home and watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In fact, that first edition of the Dublin marathon in 1980 was one giant step into the unknown for everyone involved.
Just a year earlier, RTÉ radio producer Louis Hogan was on holiday in New York. By chance he stumbled upon the city's own version of the 26.2-mile race, which started in 1970 as four laps of Central Park, and by 1979 brought more than 2,000 runners through its five boroughs.
Hogan immediately saw the potential for a similar event in Dublin, but not to help promote the jogging boom in the Jim Fixx sense. Having worked as a producer on RTÉ Radio 1 since the early 1960s, Hogan was given the task of helping set up Radio 2, RTÉ's new pop alternative that was determined to compete with the numerous pirate stations in Dublin at the time.
As a promotion vehicle to get the station's new message to the public, a Dublin marathon, sponsored by Radio 2, would be perfect. The only problem was that Hogan didn't know the first thing about running. His experience was in cricket, and he'd become one of Ireland's most respected international umpires.
The answer to that problem was staring Hogan in the face. He'd developed a close friendship with the late Noel Carroll, who appeared regularly on RTÉ radio as the spokesperson for Dublin Corporation. As a former Irish international, Carroll had the running expertise but, more importantly, plenty of pull with Dublin Corporation.
It was Carroll who ultimately took the idea of the Dublin marathon and turned it into a reality. He assigned the general organisational activities to the Business Houses Athletic Association (BHAA), and went about ensuring the city would clear 26.2 miles of road for the race. All that was left was to fix a date. A few years earlier, the October bank holiday Monday had been introduced by a certain Bertie Ahern, but still lacked any real occasion. It soon became known as Marathon Monday.
And so the stage was set for the first RTÉ Radio 2 Dublin City Marathon. For the six months before the race, the station promoted the event and the final entry of 2,100 runners exceeded all expectations. By race day, the start area at St Stephen's Green was buzzing. It was a running revolution, which would be televised live.
Despite all the unrehearsed preparations, the first Dublin marathon quickly became a model of success. There were some problems, and heavy overnight rain created flooding where the Broombridge Road met the Ballyboggan Road in Finglas. They simply made a brief diversion on race day without altering the distance.
The race got the winner it wanted, too, when the popular Raheny man Dick Hooper came home in two hours, 16 minutes and 14 seconds. For his effort he got a Dublin Crystal decanter with six glasses. Carey May was the first women's champion.
Back out on the course, not everyone was running so smoothly, and only 1,420 made it to the finish. Those who did were instant heroes. Running a marathon in 1980 was a bit like walking on the moon. You knew it was possible but you didn't know whether you'd survive it.
Among those watching that day was the former British Olympic champion, Chris Brasher, who was also considering such an event for the city of London. The following March, Brasher made that happen, but Dublin remains the first European city to formally embrace the concept of a mass participation marathon. Today, no major European city is without its own version of the 26.2-mile race.
Such was the triumphant nature of the first Dublin marathon that the city couldn't wait to do it again. More than 8,000 entered the 1981 race, with Limerick's Neil Cusack leading the 6,500 finishers home.
By 1982 the race had already peaked. There was a record 11,076 entries and the crowds that lined the city streets exceeded anything witnessed in the marathon strongholds of New York and Boston. The live television and radio coverage clearly helped, and when people saw the race approaching their street they'd run out to wave to friends and relations.
Up front the race had peaked too, with Co Kerry's Jerry Kiernan winning in a world-class time of 2:13.45 - still the official Dublin marathon record. The course has undergone several changes in the years since, and the word is that the 1982 route was one of the toughest. Once again though not everyone sailed through it, with only 8,750 finishing.
In 1984 Dublin was dubbed the first EEC marathon and this time 7,365 finished. After that, however, the numbers started to dwindle quite rapidly and just under 4,000 finished in 1987. The jogging boom was starting to wind down and marathon-running wasn't quite the novelty it used to be.
Dublin's Millennium celebrations helped push entries back towards the 9,000 mark in 1988, with another Kerryman, John Griffin, winning in 2:16.02. But that was the final year of the Radio 2 sponsorship and with no official support in 1989, the number of finishers dropped to fewer than 3,000.
For several years, the Dublin race struggled to survive. Olympic silver medallist John Treacy won it in 1993, but it wasn't until 1997, when the race was finally promoted in the US, that interest started to rise again. The sudden death of Noel Carroll in 1998 was a further blow to the event and these days the city seems to tolerate the race rather than embrace it.
Yet by 2000 the numbers were back over the 7,000 mark - and that included the surprise entry of Sonia O'Sullivan, who decided to run on the morning of the race and ended up winning the women's title in 2:35.42.
In recent years, however, the names of the winners have reflected a growing cosmopolitanism. Zacharia Mpolokeng of South Africa was the men's winner in 2001, and Kenya's Onesmus Kilonzo won last year. Clearly the €15,000 prize is attracting some of Africa's elite.
Ultimately, however, finishing is what matters for most of the 10,500 runners on Monday. That it's the 25th edition of the event won't make it any easier.
Agony and ecstasy awaits them all in equal measure.
The Marathon File
What is it? Dublin's version of the classic 26.2 mile distance, still the most popular measure of human endurance.
Why is it in the news? On Monday the race celebrates its 25th anniversary, with the second highest entry of 10,500 set to take part.
Most appealing characteristic? The first few miles, when everybody runs on an adrenaline high and the thought of getting around in under three hours seems easy.
Least appealing characteristic? The last few miles, when the legs have turned to lead and the heart and the head are crying out to stop. By then, finishing at all is the only thing that matters.
Most likely to finish it: Those who've trained for the past six months or more, have run at least one 20-mile run and sensibly avoid the full Irish breakfast on the morning of the race.
Least likely to finish it: Those who watched the Olympic marathon in Athens and shouted at Paula Radcliffe to get on with it. Wait until you get to 21 miles.