Sir, - I think I have the answer to the question posed by David McKenna (November 1st) as to why there was minimal coverage of the Dublin City Marathon on RTE. The sad fact is that there is little public interest in this event. Marathon running is one big yawn. In fact, I could further and say that the Dublin City ditto is just one big pain in the backside for citizens who find their every move curtailed by this overrated festival of self-mortification.
Let's fact it, road-running, as opposed to track-running, was never much of a spectator sport. Even in the days when jogging was considered healthy, its effect on most of us was rather more one of mild embarrassment at our own pedestrian ways, than a shared enjoyment. I mean, when did you last meet a smiling jogger?
In the meantime, the whole advisability of this exercise has been put into question. Did not the foremost advocate of the pastime, Jim Fixx, die "on the jog"? is there not medical evidence that jogging on tarmac does untold damage to bodies, by jarring leg bones, bouncing eyes in their sockets, hammering brain against skull? Yet these lemmings persist in their self-destructive ways, and expect us to take pleasure from their obvious discomfiture, like Romans at the arena!
RTE was right to virtually ignore the marathon. In fact, it should have gone further, and prefaced its coverage of the whole sorry affair with a Government Health Warning. - Yours, etc.,
D.K. Henderson, Castle Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3.