Runners defy wind, rain in marathon of suffering

The pride of Ireland won the women's race and a man called Pride from Scotland won the men's. But for anyone who even watched the Dublin City Marathon in yesterday's weather, it was hard to be humble.

At the height of the suffering, as the leaders passed the 21 1/2 mile mark at Kilmainham, it was a three-way tie between the wind, the rain and the air temperature as to what was making the small group of spectators there most miserable.

The competitors didn't look any happier. Kilmainham Gaol has seen a lot of martyrs down the years, and it seemed the list might grow yesterday as cold, wet runners turned the corner of Inchicore Road and began to hit the wall (the psychological wall rather than the gaol's, that is).

There was a fraught moment when they were in danger of hitting a red Nissan Micra, too. "You're on the marathon route!" shouted a garda at the elderly woman driver, who pulled up right on the bend. The obstacle was quickly removed, but the athletes still had five miles of misery to face.

Even Sonia O'Sullivan looked regretful about her late decision to run as she splashed by, with Belfast's Teresa Duffy close behind in the backwash.

It was just as well that the competitors had vociferous public support to keep them going. As is now traditional in the Dublin Marathon, this is provided by Americans: at Kilmainham, for instance, the cheerleader was Carol Doherty from Washington, here to support her brother, but rooting loudly for everybody else.

"Irish people don't seem to shout," she said at one point. "Is it rude?" Then she went right back to shouting, her favourite shout being "Keep it going - you're on the last leg!" This despite the fact that many were on not just one last leg, but two.

Five miles farther on, happily, Smithfield was already providing a haven to those who had finished. Indeed, as the wind billowed in their foil blankets, the finishers could have been a flotilla of pleasure craft bobbing in a harbour.

Scotland's Simon Pride, the winner of the men's race, admitted that his confidence had been "sky-high" when he woke up and saw the weather: "I knew the Kenyans would hate it, but it's like this every day in the Highlands."

Supporting his theory, second-placed John Mutai walked around like a man in the early stages of petrifaction. "My muscles are tight everywhere", he complained.

Sonia O'Sullivan admitted that she had felt like "chucking it in" at one point and denied this was a test run for a future marathon career, before her baby daughter cut short the press interviews by complaining loudly about the cold.

The 22-year-old winner of the men's wheelchair race, Gerard Connolly of Crossmaglen, was not completely happy either. He was "very disappointed" with his time, but added that his target was to make the Irish team for next year's European Paralympics.

In the meantime he, too, had cause for pride. And, given the week that was in it, no one mentioned prejudice.