4 hours 17 minutes

Nobody on the bus looks like they would complain if it broke down. The runners have been gathering since early morning to be driven out to the start of the race and conversation has long since ceased. The two older men with the Dublin Marathon 88 tee shirts and the John McEnroe headbands aren’t discussing Joe’s hamstring any more and instead they look out of the window like everyone else. There’s not much to see. Connemara sheep stand forlornly in the mist outside the fogged up windows.

Connemara 2006

Inside determined young women with ponytailed hair have pink ipods stuck to their upper arms and water bottles glued to their hands. Older men wear the veteran runner’s uniform of a dark blue Dunlop tracksuit with thin white lines on the sleeves and the legs. This has been washed too many times and bobbles dot the surface no matter how many times they dust them off. Down the back sits the marathon novice with the box fresh silver runners bought last week. I’m there too, sitting a few rows in front of him with my black Dunnes hat on already and pockets rammed with bananas and jelly babies.

The doors open and the runners pile out to wait. There’s about twenty minutes until the start. A pulse of nervous energy rushes through the crowd who move to the roadside ditch as the first of the ultra marathoners passes. He has done thirteen miles already and glides smoothly past with a long even stride and the expression of a man who is wondering what newspaper to buy when he finishes.

Good luck shouts ring out and strangers shake hands as people shuffle and barge their way to the start line.

See you at the line

Best of luck

Take it easy there

Tell me why we do this again

Some make the sign of the cross and others charge off for one last toilet stop behind a hedge. There are no hedges here so they run a few yards away and turn their backs on the crowd. The fine rain stops just as the starting gun fires and hundreds of feet softly slap the tarmac. Nobody talks. I say a quick prayer for world peace and to finish in under four hours while the loudest sound made by the two hundred people is the hiss of urgent breaths sucked in through the nose to be stockpiled for the rigours ahead.

The first mile is athletic shadow boxing. Runners caught down the back of the field wave their apologies as they weave in between the churning legs from the ditch to the middle of the road and back again to make up time. About nine minutes later they pass the mile post which is guarded by a smiling man under a dark blue rain jacket. He shouts encouragement as they see the marker, check their watch, press a button, and hear the beep.

The next two hours slip softly by, like the glistening rain as it trickles from the humpy road to the ditches. It feels like running down a ski slope in a dream, or striding across a field of pillows.

At halfway after thirteen miles precisely, the runners approach Leenane and take a sharp turn right up a slope past two whitewashed pubs side by side. Smooth black tarmac gives way to rough gravel and deep kidney shaped potholes as everyone curses Mayo County Council for not finishing the only hill in the village. There’s no more talking because people are struggling for breath and any spare has to be hoarded for the next climb. A bunch of rosy faced half-marathon men and women join the full marathoners at the bottom of the hill – full of chat they get only silence by way of reply.

The slope is steep and feels brief. It seemed short on the map too but the race isn’t being run on the map and after half a mile there is still an unending upward strip of an old grey tarmac’ed road that is far higher in the middle than the two sides. Just as it is about to get painful the summit is crested and the fresh green valley opens out below like a crumpled book. Someone has been here before and there’s a line painted across the road from one ditch to the other with “KOH” written in green on top of it. The letters are a grateful mystery, as for five minutes it takes the mind off the distance left to run and the blister forming in my left shoe. Reality shocks me as I figure out KOH means King of the Hill from a long forgotten bike race and there’s still nearly twelve miles to go.

By now the runners are spread far apart in single file and even the half-marathoners have stopped talking. Nobody sees the porky old ram with the curly tusks peering down at us, much less the shimmering Connemara daylight which turns the road grey, then black, then a lighter grey again in the space of a minute.

Mile post after mile post drags by and the time between them gets longer and longer and my stride gets shorter and shorter like a toddler’s steps. I look at my watch and estimate how much of my four hours I have to spare. There are six miles left and I know won’t do it. I start thinking of favourite songs to sing so I won’t cry. Someone with a sandpapered throat whispers the first verse of “Mr Brightside” like an old man wrapped round a bottle of Guinness at a wake and I realise it’s me. This wastes precious breath so I stop.

Footsteps slap behind me and gradually an elderly lady with a white Ontario Half Marathon 87 tee shirt that is too big for her draws level with me. Her grey hair is pulled severely back in a ponytail. She has had the free bus pass for a few years now. She smiles and wishes me the best of luck:

Good lad lovely day out

Hard isn’t it

Oh yes must keep plugging away

That’s it

Well can’t delay best of luck

And she accelerates round the corner. When I get there she is has gone past the next corner. She must be - I can’t see her anymore.

I don’t even try to sing.

The worst part is they can see the hill well before they run it. The Hell of the West is draped over the Connemara valley like a black snake sunning itself on the rocks. The runners get a full twenty minutes perusal of every painful metre that must be conquered as they chug downhill from the other side. From a wooden table at the bottom smiling young girls and boys in O Neill’s tracksuits run alongside us to hand out water and orange pieces and encouragement.

Only three miles left

F**k off you try running twenty three miles first

I don’t say this but I think it and it must show on my face through the attempted rictus grin. Any helpful words are ok to shout at runners. Anything bar a reminder of the distance left. This hill is two miles long and at the end is another mile before the sanctity of the finish and the timing clock.

Toddler’s steps have become shorter and shorter again. My mouth frames my tongue as I open it as much as I can to suck in more air which is not half enough. After fifty yards on this hill I have exhausted every positive thought I brought with me and can only think about not walking. To any observer I am practically walking already but not in my own head and that is what counts. The jelly babies are a sodden lump of multicoloured playdough in my shorts pocket. The sugar is seeping out through the green fabric. I scrape one out and dry retch it down my throat until I can take no more and spit it into the ditch for the sheep. Everything hurts now and each part of me competes for attention. My thighs sear, my shins swell, my chest tightens, my toes ooze, my watch chafes where the strap has been rubbing my skin. I am afraid to look at it so turn it around on my wrist until the top of the hill.

One foot keeps landing in front of the other and I stare down at them and I know as long as this happens one shoe will cross the finish line and it will be all over. I jog the last few steps, lift up my arms as far as I can and grimace at the camera. And it is.

The clicking yellow figures over my head read 04.17.07 and I smile for the rest of the week.

©Cian Blake2007