KC Runners Travel to Ireland for Dublin City Marathon
You may not have known it, (and why should you?) but Monday in Ireland was a Bank Holiday.
The last Monday in October is the holiday that traditionally gets us through from the August Bank Holiday to Christmas, and just as traditionally gloat about it to our October holiday-less neighbours across the Irish Sea.
Perhaps more meaningfully though, is that it is also the day that hosts the Dublin City Marathon. This year was the 29th running of the event, and it had quite a few runners all the way from Kansas City in it, including Clare Roberts, a 55-year-old spokeswoman at Metropolitan Community College-Kansas City:
after nearly five months of training and finding out her osteoporosis had reversed, Roberts decided she would fly to Ireland with 25 other first-time runners from MCC for today’s 29th annual Lifestyle Sports-Adidas Dublin Marathon.
The main difference that I can see between the marathon in Dublin and the marathon in KC, is the crowds. A lot of people go out to watch and cheer the marathon here in Dublin, whereas in KC I don’t recall much interest beyond those directly involved and a small number of people interested in them.
Back when I was fitter I hosted a group of Americans and dragged them around Dublin on foot so that they could cheer the running members of their party at various points around the city. The route did come within 1 mile of my home in Dublin on Monday, but this year I just stood at the one point - on Nassau Street by the Trinity railings (across the road from this mosaic mural).
By fluke I managed to bump into a couple of Kansas City runners in a Dublin pub shortly after the race, and they proudly wearing their blue medals and black finisher t-shirts. What did they make of it all? You’ll just have to book a flight to Ireland and run 26.2 miles to find out.
See Also:
• At The Races: Photos of Horseracing in Clonmel, Tipperary
• The Celtic Ranch Cup: Gaelic Football in Kansas City
• Yank Abroad: A KC Wizard in Ireland
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