The streets of Waterford have never been quieter in living memory. The calls for a reduction in community activity in a bid to flatten the Covid-19 curve are, by and large, being adhered to.
Most of the population is acting responsibly and for the next fortnight, for all our sakes, we’d better abide to what’s been requested of us on a whole host of fronts.
But we still need to exercise for the sake of body and mind alike. With that in mind, the two-kilometre radius which we’ve been requested to primarily remain within between now and April 12th provides space aplenty in which to keep moving.
By the fortune of geography, two loops I’ve grown accustomed to running around in recent months lie comfortably within the area that a lot of us were busy plotting online yesterday morning.
And as this quarantine continues, I suspect these routes will gain an additional level of significance for myself and the other joggers and runners in my locality.
These days, I do not run with a sports-driven goal in mind. It was not always so. I had a reasonably successful number of seasons as a juvenile and junior athlete in the mid to late 90s, proudly wearing the colours of Ring/Old Parish and West Waterford Athletics Clubs, along with Carrick-on-Suir CBS. Running at a host of locations – Santry Stadium, the old track at UCD, Cork IT, UL, Waterford’s RSC and Saint Augustine’s College (Dungarvan) to name but a few – I was rarely the fastest athlete, not that this ever really bothered me. I was determined to give the best account of myself every time I laced up my spikes, be it for track or cross-country action. More often than not, I ticked that box and I was thrilled with the individual and team medals that came my way.
Along came college and my sporting focus shifted. I lined out for my local soccer club, Portlaw United for three of my four years at Dublin Institute of Technology and when I returned home to Waterford for work, I resumed my soccer career and also took up rugby.
Both activities kept me ticking over and for most of my 20s and early 30s, whenever I ran, it was just for the fun of it, although I did run the annual 10K Fun Run which The Munster Express co-ordinated for several years. The truth being told, as I got older, I never regained the appetite for competitive running that I revelled in between 1994 and 1998, falling in and out of love with the sport more than once over the past 20-odd years.
Granted, I ran marathons in both 2010 (Cork) and 2011 (Edinburgh) but since then, I’ve never felt a desire to cover such a distance again. But conscious as I am of the old runners’ maxim of “never say never”, I can’t state with total certainty than I’ll never put my body through such an examination again.
Yet here I am, nine years later, a few months shy of my 41st birthday and I’m aiming to get out three times a week for the remainder of the year. Nowadays, I’ve got an eye on the watch primarily for distance purposes as opposed to making a particular time and there’s a freedom that comes with such an approach. If I feel like stopping, then that’s exactly what I do. And to mix things up a little, in an attempt to avoid ‘same pace syndrome’, I tend to run a few miles steadily and then get in some interval runs over a slightly shorter distance.
Prone as I am to running at times when most people are settling down for the night, the current imposition catalysed by the health scare hasn’t stymied such excursions. I’m probably a stone overweight currently and while I know that better eating habits will do a great deal more for reducing my load bearing than ramping up my mileage, my resting heart rate is 53 and I feel great.
Running clears my mind like nothing else ever has in my life. My only regret now, when I consider the years put behind me, is that I didn’t run more than I did, particularly during those more testing times when I doubted myself a little too much. But those days are long behind me now, the runners are back in active service and I’m very happy with my lot in life.
My greatest single running memory dates from the Spring of 1997 when I ran in the Tipperary Colleges’ Senior Cross-Country Championship in Holycross. In heavy underfoot conditions (God, how I loved the mud!). I found myself placed fourth heading into the final lap, knowing I probably didn’t have the gas to take gold.
The front runner extended his advantage to the point where none of us behind him could make up the ground so I chose to focus on the next two athletes ahead of me. As we came over the crest of the course’s final hill, with less than 600 metres to go, I knew it was time to make my move.
I’d trained well over the previous month and knew what I was capable of. I made up the 20 or so metres to the bronze positioned runner and as we turned for home, I had moreorless the same amount of ground to make up on the only competitor I knew I could still catch. Never blessed with the most efficient of running styles, I skirted across the mud in that closing stretch as best I could, passing the next guy ahead of me with 100 metres to spare and crossing the finish line wishing I’d moved a little earlier than I did. I was full of running, even though my lungs were burning.
My Dad, who’d driven me from school to Holycross that day, never took his eyes off me the whole route around and his face was full of excitement and pride as I sprung off the ground and wrapped all my limbs around him in celebration.
“I could see you coming the whole time that last lap,” he said to me with both eyes dancing. In truth, the look on Dad’s face meant even more to me than the warmth of his words.
Dad, along with my Mam, always wanted my five siblings and I to be the best we could possibly be in whatever we did. And in recalling my adolescence, I don’t think I ever gave my sporting best better than I did that damp afternoon in South Tipperary. I’m so glad I had my Dad there to share that moment with me.
The great Ron Clarke (1937-2015), the first man to run three miles in under 13 minutes, spoke for every runner when he declared: “The hardest step for a runner to take is the first one out the door.”
The greatest joy in running, regardless of one’s individual motivation or ability, is what lies beyond that first step. I’m so glad I fell back in love with it.
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