I have come to believe running is as much a spiritual experience as a physical one, and the older I get the more convinced I become of the importance of this grain of truth.
I am convinced that at certain difficult times in my life my running background is what sustained me- even when I was doing absolutely no running during the time of trauma in question. I have also heard many others express the same belief, describing how running sustained them or lifted their spirits through episodes of sadness or depression.
Most runners have experienced and embraced some physical pain in training and racing, but the feelings of wellbeing that inevitably ensue nearly always compensate for the discomfort. The act of running is creative too, and the late Dr. George Sheehan referred to his running as “the hub in the centre of my life”. That metaphor will, I am sure, will strike a chord with lots of people throughout the Irish running community.
I suppose distance running, more than any other physical activity, brings us back continually to simplicity, to having the curiosity of a child and the freedom of an adult.
For a number of reasons, I have been thinking about Dr. George Sheehan in the run-up to Christmas this year. The waning year always conjures memories of running with George and Noel Carroll and JP Murray through the splendour of County Wicklow’s Djouce Woods on a bright October Saturday morning and afterwards spending a couple of hours in a little café in Bray talking about running and life. My three friends from those tranquil days in the woods up near Enniskerry have been long departed, but I feel each of their spirits close to me, especially as the year closes in.
George Sheehan was a fountain of wisdom and the best writer on running that I have ever read. “When you are fit, you fill your day, when you are unfit, you kill it,“ Sheehan wrote.
The good doctor had great empathy with marathon runners and all of the 15,000 plus runners who completed this year’s SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon will fully understand what the great American Running Guru wrote in his book Personal Best. George wrote:
“Life is made in doing and suffering and creating. All of that is there in the marathon, the doing in training, the suffering in the race, and finally, the creating that comes with the tranquillity that follows.”
“This stage on which we can be bigger than life is a place where we can exhibit all that is good in us. Courage and determination, discipline and willpower, the purging of all negative impulses, we see that we are indeed whole and holy.”
“We have been told time and again that we were born to success, but a truly run marathon convinces us of that truth.”
“The marathon fills our subconscious with this gospel. Taking a well-trained body through a gruelling 26.2 mile race does immeasurably more for the self-concept and self-esteem than years with the best psychiatrist.”
And that is why the SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon is on my list of things I’d like to achieve in 2016. The past year, my 64th on the planet was a time when after far too long a lapse, I again rediscovered all the joys of running.
It was my granddaughter six year old Hayleigh Bone that I have to thank for getting me back on track, as well as two other great mentors, Catherina McKiernan and David Carrie, leader of Team Carrie in Dunleer, County Louth. Three other great friends, Ray McManus, Feidhlim Kelly and Gerry Duffy also helped to keep me motivated during the year, but it was my little granddaughter who gave me the biggest prompt to get back running.
Hayleigh Bone loves nothing better than to race like the wind around a special spot in Rialto she calls ‘The Circle Field’. It’s about two years since I started to bring Hayleigh to this little green oasis hard by the Grand Canal, but back then I was content to just watch my first grandchild joyfully stride out.
Frank running with his six year old granddaughter Hayleigh – Image credit: Ray McManus of sportsfile.com
Then one day late last year she posed a searching question: “My Mam (Catherine) said you used to be a famous runner, why do you not run much now?”
This was when the light went on for me and I resolved not to be a spectator anymore. It was past time I made a sustained attempt to get back in harness. This past year was a time when I proved to myself that you are never too old to pick up the threads of your running and rediscover the lovely sense of play and innocence involved. These days when I get to run with two of the grandchildren, Hayleigh Bone and Thomas Branigan Greally, I feel as young at heart as I did one night back in 1970 when I set a national junior record (30 minutes 17 seconds) for 10,000 metres on the track in the Morton Stadium in Santry, a record that is somehow miraculously still standing.
On August 18th, forty five years after I set the record, I returned to the same track in Santry and in the company of seven Olympians, many friends and family members, I completed close to half the 10,000 metres distance in 30:17. I called that effort in Santry my ‘Gratitude Run’ and on that night I had indeed many reasons to feel grateful. I will tell you some more about how I succeeded in this mission in my next blog on the A Lust for Life website.
The Irish Runner Yearbook 2016 is on sale now at all leading newsagents countrywide or direct from: www.irishrunner.com You can contact Frank Greally by emailing editor@irishrunner.ie
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