One Day on the Run at the Dublin City Marathon 2023
On the way up to Dublin on the bus at 6.15am in the morning, I look at my phone to pass the time and the first thing I see is that Friends actor Matthew Perry has drowned in his hot tub, and one of the first things I see people sharing is the first page of his autobiography called “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”. With nothing better to do for the next two hours I download his book and read the first few pages and it’s quite the revelation. He describes having beautiful girlfriends, millions of dollars, his dream job, and his dream house and yet is still harbouring an inner void which throughout his life he regularly tried to drown in a sea of alcohol induced oblivion. I have yet to read beyond the first few pages but it occurs to me that a lot of us are always chasing some intangible thing. A fulfilling relationship, a better career, any career, better health, or whatever. And this chain of thoughts leads me to thinking about Alan Watts who I discovered during lockdown. He says all our lives we are chasing things so as to arrive at some imaginary destination that we feel will finally bring solace to our souls, but that solace never comes. He compares it to dancing and says that the object of the dance is not to get to the end of it any more than the object of listening to music is to get to the final musical note. The object, he says, is to enjoy the dance and the song, otherwise one might as well not bother with all the machinations that lead up to that final step of the dance, or the final note of the song and we could reduce both things to a single step or a single note. If this were the case then music concerts and dances would only be about one second long. Amidst my wandering musings, I spot a wonderful watery sunrise out the window of the bus and I take out my camera and try to capture it. A colourful sunrise always inspires awe in me and makes me feel like everything is ok with the world, whether it is or not, perhaps it never is, and perhaps it’s not meant to be, but the feeling is nice anyway.
I arrive in Dublin around 8:45 and my first shooting location is going to be the James Joyce Bridge, where I want to make sure my camera settings are dialled in correctly. The bridge is at about a mile and half in, and I have exactly zero intention of taking more than a dozen or so photos here. In a big race like Dublin, it’s far too difficult to capture individual people in any meaningful way and so I always opt for locations later in races where people have started to fan out a bit.
After taking a few pictures of the front runners as a warm up, I start making my way to around mile 25. As I’m walking along the road besides massive crowds of runners, I hear someone call “Hey, Rich” and I recognise the voice of Chris Grayson, a well-known pacer on the running scene, and I have about a split second to point and shoot before he’s carried off in the massive crowds of people doing his thing.
At mile 25, I pick a spot at the right side of the road and settle down. Making ultra sure I have my settings dialled in correctly, I take a few random photos of people. It’s a little bit drizzly at first and then the sun comes out, and my slightly damp clothes start to dry out a bit. But the sudden change in temperature causes my camera to mist up and I can’t see a thing through the viewfinder. It isn’t long before it clears again though. And then the winning wheelchair athlete, Patrick Monahan, comes speeding down the road. I point my camera at him, frame him up nicely and hit the focus button but nothing happens. I press it again and again but it just will not focus. And then the moment is gone, I missed my chance to get a photo of the first participant over the line, but I got him earlier on the James Joyce bridge, so it’s not really a terrible tragedy.
When such malfunctions happen, one can generally turn your camera off and on or take off the lens and put it back on and then it works again. All electronics have little glitches sometimes. And after doing these typical things, my camera starts to work again and I manage to pop off some photos of the elites coming through. I have often called out their names as loudly as I could with words of encouragement, but they don’t appear to hear or see anything. No, they just look straight ahead at the road, tearing along, seemingly oblivious. And I always wonder if it’s a thing that they don’t actually see or hear people or if they consciously block people out. It’s a common thread with elite runners regardless. One thing I am sure of, it’s definitely not because they are rude because I’ve sat down and spoken to a few elite runners and they are some of the nicest people you could ever hope to sit down and speak with.
At many marathons I have cheered “well done, keep going” to runners as I’ve been taking photos; to the point where I go completely hoarse and can’t speak properly by the end of the day. As well as that, I always get crazy ass notions of attaching a GoPro to my head, having a camera on a tripod for video, attaching my phone to my chest for reels, and maybe even having a flash in my bag so as to see if I might manage to do something creative with that if the mood takes me. When I’m off caffeine, like I am at the moment, I manage to easily talk myself out of these wild notions, and focus on one specific task, with one specific piece of equipment, but it’s not always easy. Today, I decide to be like an elite runner, and be oblivious to everything other than the task I’m here to accomplish
“Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be late” is a line which keeps echoing in my head every time I see someone run past me looking at their watch during the hours I am photographing the marathon. And I wonder what it is they are going to be late for. I don’t really, I know. They are chasing a time; they set a target and they are trying their hardest to hit that target. Many of them look like they are about to burst into floods of tears with the effort of it. I’ll often take a burst of photos of such people and in the first picture they look like they are about to have a stroke, in the second picture they look like they are about to cry, and then, when they spot me with a camera, a smile as bright and cheerful as a summer’s day beams from a face that spontaneously looks carefree and full of joy. And when I’m processing the photos, I’ll delete the first two pictures and only keep the one where they are smiling brightly. I run marathons, and I am often that person repeatedly checking my watch and looking pained. I would have been that person this year too only for several health problems over the year, the last of which was an ankle I fractured in two places when out on a training run about a month ago, but I’ll write all about that in another post entitled “Running sucks, but I do it anyway”. I have a title now anyway, and that’s the hardest part, isn’t it? Haha.
My photo taking is going well at first, but then spectators come out from the side of the road to the edge of the bus lane, completely obscuring my view of the oncoming runners. And so, I have to move from the kerb to the edge of the bus lane to get photos. But what happens then is that runners get funnelled into a smaller area. And then the rain comes down heavily and all the spectators run for shelter, which at first, I think is a good thing, but then runners come through the entire width of the road again, and I have to go back to the kerb or some one of them will definitely run straight into me. And then my camera malfunctions. And then the rain stops and it starts working again, but the other spectators fill the bus lane again and so I have to go back in the bus lane again. Rinse, repeat. This happens again and again over the time I’m taking photographs.
At one point, the rain starts coming down so heavily that I can see absolutely nothing out of my camera and then it stops shooting completely. A flashing screen tells me there is no memory card. I take it out of the camera; and it’s soaked. I try to dry it and put it back in and now it says CHA, which according to Google means the card isn’t formatted. But it is formatted. I formatted it in the morning before I even left home. I’ve only maybe 2,000 pictures taken at this stage and it looks like the gig is up. It’s a far cry from the 10,000 I was determined I would take. But there’s nothing to be done, I think. It’s an act of god. It couldn’t be helped. I get up, soaked, my teeth chattering, my camera possibly ruined, and start making my way towards town. And when I stand up my knees are aching like crazy and feel seriously stiff. It’s almost like the rain has soaked through all of my clothes and even my skin and into my bones. “I need to buy dry clothes,” I think, and start hobbling towards town, shivering, my teeth rhythmically hammering. So much for my Simon Community fundraiser, I think, and feel like a failure. And then the sun comes out a bit again, and I feel a smidge warmer, and I take out my camera again and try and turn it on and it seems to be working again. And so, I get back into position. No excuses. I start shooting away again. I’m determined to keep going as long as my camera still works, regardless of personal discomfort.
After a time, I see a muscular man running in nothing but what appears to be a pair of pink swimming trunks and a pair of running shoes. I hear shocked gasps from women behind me and one of them says in the thickest Dublin accent you could ever hear “For the love of god, look at that fella. Jaaaayziz” and I find myself chuckling so much for a moment that laughter tears well up in my eyes. Later on, through Facebook I am informed that his name is Rory and that he is doing the run like this as a fundraiser for the Down Syndrome Centre. I’m not sure if this is accurate or not but he sure brightened my day.
I keep shooting away for a while longer, but at around 2.30pm, my camera has suffered one downpour too many, and completely stops working. It won’t take photos and it won’t turn off either. So that’s it, it’s over. I’m done. I got around 4,500 photos instead of the 10,000 I had hoped for. And I wonder if I’ll even be able to get any photos off of the card what with all the soaking. “At least now I can go and buy some dry clothes,” I think and start Googling on my phone to see if there’s a Penney’s nearby. On my way to Penney’s I pass an Aran jumper shop and go in and buy one. I remove my damp layers but my quick drying undergarment isn’t too uncomfortable, and so I leave it on, putting my new jumper over it, and then putting my soggy jacket on over that. A few doors up, I buy a pair of woolly socks, and am now modestly cosy again, and so I go to Supermac’s, which is a tradition for me after running a marathon, and right at this moment I feel more fecked than if I had run one.
Upon leaving Supermac’s, and heading towards the Liffey, I spot two bedraggled homeless people in a small alcove between buildings. One of them is in a wheelchair, and both look completely emaciated. They’re smoking something, I don’t know what, out of some kind of pipe. At the Liffey there are several fire trucks and I wonder if someone is after jumping in. I have a vague impulse to go over and have a look, but then decide not to. Someone’s misfortune is none of my business. A few moments later a marathon runner is hurriedly passing me. I ask him if he had a good run and he says, “ah, ya, but I’m just on my way to hospital now as my wife has been admitted with heart trouble”. I don’t know what happened but it seems she made the journey to town with him and was spectating when she fell ill. He told me he had no idea where his car was and informed me that his wife had his car keys and wallet. He carried on, and I wished him good luck and said I hoped that his wife would be okay.
I arrive home, completely achy and shattered at around 7.30. I had meant to dry out my camera when I got home but I’m so exhausted that I just slump down on the couch. The TV is on, and soaps being on the TV usually prompt me to leave the room rapidly, even though I used to watch all of them. I can hear Fair City and I’m so tired I can’t even muster up the strength to haul myself off of the couch, and I slip into oblivion. In the morning, I take my card out of the camera; it’s quite soggy and doesn’t work, and so I put it on a heater and go for a walk. “A wasted day,” I think. But after my walk I again plug the card into my computer and this time it reads it and I feel a mix of relief and disappointment.
“4,500 bloody pictures to process,” I sigh, and get on with the day’s work that’s in it :).
“We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.” - Alan Watts.