YOU'VE goaded your body into running 100 miles a week. Your legs are ready. Your mind is ready. You wake up in the morning feeling disabled if you can't dive into your runners and pump your legs into an early morning mist. All you want to do is run and you can't. You can't because the marathon is just days away. You can't because you have to rest.

"The last week is the worst because your routine just goes out the window," says Dubliner Jerry Healy. "You want to run, but you have to take it easy. I've cut down to 70 miles a week from 100 miles and I'm now down to about 30 or 40 this week. I don't know what to do with myself."

Healy is an elite athlete. He might win Monday's marathon or he might not even finish it. He hopes that his body will react to the challenge. He has reason to believe that it will.

Healy has finished four marathons, having come to the distance late in a running career that also started late. Having broken his leg during a karate practice session, he decided that marathon running might prove to be a less painful pastime. So far it has.

"I wanted to see if I could do it. One summer it occurred to me to have a go. I started training in June and ended up having to walk a bit of the race because I hadn't trained that well. I'd never really run in my life before. Even in school I hadn't bothered. I was 19 then, back in 1984, and I did it in 3:12. Then I gave up."

Seven years later in Dublin, that time came down to 2:19 and his sixth placing marked him down as more of a marathon runner than a misfit.

"I thought the more training you did the better. I was wrong. I started getting colds and stuff. The line between being fit and unfit is thin. Getting it right for your body is the most important thing. You learn from your success and failures."

The following April, Healy was selected to be a pacemaker in the Belgrade marathon. He accepted and shot off. But at 15 miles he felt good. Healy finished second in 2:16.53.

Because he wasn't training specifically for the marathon at that stage, he thought he'd go again in July having received an invitation to Australia. He finished third in 2:15.10.

"I thought I was on a roll then, but I got an injury that I couldn't shake off for a year and a half. I ended up lust running through it and finally I was okay again."

At 32, Healy's credo is still the same as it always was. He started off by asking could he do it and he is still stuck in that mode. He admits to having an eye on Sydney for the next Olympics and it is not outrageous to think that he can make the qualifying time.