There is no more pleasurable exercise than a long run along a sandy beach

IT AMAZES me how many people still consider Chariots of Fireone of the best running films ever made. It's terribly corny in parts and features a dramatic licence that makes The Godfatherseem factual in comparison. Most of the acting is fairly dodgy too, even that of Dennis Christopher – who plays the part of the American sprinter Charlie Paddock, and previously starred in the best cycling film ever made, Breaking Away.

What will always redeem it is that opening scene: Eric Liddell and the lads running barefoot along the beach at St Andrews, in slow motion, naturally, with that classic theme tune by Vangelis airing in the background. That tune won Vangelis an Academy Award in 1981, and has been stuck in my head all week after my impromptu Kerry Beach Running Tour. So much so I sat down to watch Chariots of Fireon Thursday night.

I’ve said it before, but there is no more pleasurable exercise than a long run along a sandy beach. It’s the most natural running surface, and draws you into the most natural running style. The best part may well be the dip in the ocean at the end, which brings about such an immediate feeling of recovery that straight away you want to start all over again.

The only danger is the addiction, and after just one week of beach running it somehow feels less natural to be back running on dry land – and less satisfying.

Truth is, once you get the weather and even half-decent temperatures then there’s no place on earth to beat Kerry; which explains why I went for a weekend and ended up staying a week. Given the original assignment was to attend the Kerry football press day, it was only fitting that the following morning, while running down Banna Strand, I passed a small band of Kerry footballers, a couple of whom will feature in tomorrow’s All-Ireland final.

I probably shouldn’t mention that I later saw them kicking around an Australian Rules football, as that might give their identity away. In any case, between the cloudless blue sky and warm sunshine we could just as well have been on Bondi Beach.

After a dip in the crystal clear Atlantic Ocean, I bumped into the Castleisland massage therapist and all-round sporting healer-guru Ger Keane. I don’t think Ger played football for Kerry, but he apparently trained with them, and once we started talking about running he recounted many tales of gut-busting sessions around the sand dunes of Banna. The steep hill over the main entrance to Banna was a particular favourite, and the record time from bottom to top is still held by Mike Sheehy.

For several generations of Kerry footballers, from John O’Keeffe to Tadhg Kennelly, Banna remains a training ground first and playground second.

“And you know, Jack O’Shea was a schools cross county champion as well,” Keane told me.

It’s often assumed Kerry’s football greatness is somehow inherited, but most of the Kerry greats were either natural athletes to begin with or else a product of their natural training environment. If the secret is something in the water, then it must be the sea water.

From Banna, the Kerry Beach Running Tour headed south towards the Dingle Peninsula, where the choices are many and none disappoint. Castlegregory has wide stretches of beach at Maherbeg where even the shortest run can generate the sort of hunger that can only be satisfied by a feed of fish in Spillane's; while on the other side of the peninsula, Inch is not only a mile but three long miles of beautiful, soft shoreline that runs every bit as stunning today as it did when they filmed Ryan's Daughter.

Out around Slea Head the beaches are slightly more exposed and challenging.

Reports of Páidí Ó Sé training like an animal up and down Ventry, always with a football in his hand, still emanate these days, and inevitably the practice was inherited by his nephews Darragh, Tomás, and Marc. But last weekend, with not a ripple on the ocean, it was Caribbean-like, particularly on the sheltered side around Ballyferriter and the positively heavenly Wine Strand.

With the weather holding up the Kerry Beach Running Tour was extended for a couple of days into the Iveragh Peninsula. There I ran into the big daddy of them all – in beach terms and football terms. Despite being half-born and half-raised in Kerry, I’d never run down Rossbeigh before. So I stopped off in Cahersiveen to refuel at Helen’s Coffee House and get some advice from Maurice Fitzgerald, who these days runs the auctioneering business in the centre of town but still looks like he could walk on to any football team in the country.

As it turned out, Maurice was just back from the beach. Every day, he told me, without fail, he goes down to the nearby White Strand with his father, Ned, and together they swim for 15 or 20 minutes in what is effectively the far side of Valentia Harbour.

“You can’t beat it,” he said. “I find it fantastic and I think it’s been keeping my father going as well. It’s great for the health and the recovery.”

You only had to look at Maurice to realise how true that must be. He may turn 40 on his next birthday but he retains an impossibly youthful appearance that can only be attributed to high doses of natural exercise.

“I’m not getting out as much as I used to,” he admitted. “There’d be times all right when I’d run nearly every day, and then let it slip. I need to start getting out some more again.”

He told me he’d actually started out in cross country running, up until the age of 12 or 13, but used to finish down the field: “Well down the field. But I always enjoyed it. There’s something about individual sports like running that builds character you don’t get in team sports . . .”

And then his phone rang: he’d to pick up his three eldest children who he takes running most afternoons in the new sports ground just over the river.

So we walked up Cahersiveen’s main street and before departing stopped in to see Pat O’Shea, who does almost all his running on the three-quarter-mile stretch along White Strand. Pat turns 60 on his next birthday and could probably pass for a man half that age, which may explain why he’s still winning World and European Championship veterans’ titles. Pat puts his longevity down to beach-running and staying off the roads whenever possible, and considers himself so lucky.

“I suppose we’ll probably beat Cork all right in the end on Sunday,” said Maurice walking out the door, suggesting for the first time that Kerry football will always be a primary concern around the third Sunday in September.

Later, having run to the tip of Rossbeigh, and which these days involves wading through a narrow stretch of shallow Atlantic water, it seemed obvious one of the main reasons Kerry will always produce some of the most natural footballers in the country is because they have one of the most natural training grounds.

If only we were all so lucky.