RUN SPORTS BLOG RUN

20 Apr 2010

It’s a rare and momentous day that the Sports Blog rises from the couch and becomes part of the sporting fabric of our nation. A good thing too, given the state of the wheezing and disoriented figure that crossed the line after Sunday’s Great Ireland Run in Phoenix Park.

Cruelly, the Great Ireland Run’s website allows the possibility of purchasing photos of oneself on the course, should one wish to preserve for posterity an image closely resembling a walrus having a heart attack. It’s quite a blow to the self esteem when the visual manifestation of oneself at peak athletic performance is less Haile Gebrselassie, more Johnny Vegas.

Still, beating the hour mark for 10km was the target, and while Roger Bannister’s four minute mile won’t be dislodged in terms of historical significance anytime soon, it was achieved without recourse to medical attention.

It’s quite something, this – literally – mass movement of recent years that has seen people eschew gym memberships in favour of the most basic form of human exercise; this thing that we did tens of thousands of years before we even realised that we needed to exercise, because we were too busy chasing woolly mammoths with spears to develop love handles.

I don’t know if it’s a post-boom rejection of the more pointless and decadent trappings of wealth – if that’s the case, watch out decking and sushi – and a return to that which is simple and good and proper. Certainly among the 10,000 or so in Phoenix Park on Sunday there was a good-natured collective atmosphere that you don’t get while crunching your deltoids at the gym. One of my fellow-runners said it was like a music festival without the booze, drugs and (as far as I’m aware) casual sex, but slightly more sweaty.

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