I AM A RUNNER - My Story

I was never the most active child. I fractured my shoulder doing cross country round the school nature reserve when I was 10. I scored the occasional wild free kick in 5 A Side in High School and swam and ran for my county as a guest off and on but never held much interest in it, it was just something to do of a Saturday morning. This continued in to my early teenage years until the temptations of video games and television became the driving factor to my future couch potato life. To me, sports was fun to watch on the television, but actually doing it was a chore, a challenge. I apparently had better things to do. Sport was boring.

In 2019 my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. After losing my grandmother, and also final remaining grandparent, in 2007 to the same horrific disease I couldn't believe that this was a path I would be revisiting again, and so soon.

At the time, and for completely different personal reasons, I decided to take on the Couch to 5K plan. I had tried numerous times and given up. My leg hurts. My back hurts. It's raining. I'm cold. This is dull. The match is on telly tonight. Why am I doing this? All of these things were given as excuses time and again until one day it just clicked and I finished the C25K program using the NHS One You app (Michael Johnson is a great coach!). Being able to run for 30 minutes non-stop was an impossible dream to me until then.

By the time I got news of my mother's diagnosis, I was running the Great Ireland Run 2019 and had already booked myself in for the Dublin Race Series. My goal was to try and finish the 3 races with the half marathon being my ultimate goal in 2019 and a full marathon a mere pipe dream for 2020.

Taking in to account that my mother's condition was progressing reasonably quickly, I wanted to do something that I hoped she would witness before the inevitable happens. I wanted to do something that she would be proud of me for. I wanted to run, and finish, the Dublin Marathon. In the same year.

With tickets sold out long since, I was at a loss of what to do. I put the feelers out with friends and family as well as with my local athletics club. No leads arose alas. It was on the morning of July 1, 2019 that I found myself in Heathrow Airport, coming home from the MLB London Series on a standby flight, furiously refreshing and tapping away at the screen on my phone after a friend text me to say that extra tickets for the Dublin Marathon had just been released.

Amazingly I managed to secure a place just before the website crashed. I couldn't believe my luck. I was in. In my 40th year, I was going to run the 40th Dublin Marathon.

I spoke to the good folks at my local club Lusk AC, whom I had joined back in late 2018. They were absolutely brilliant towards me and understood what I was trying to achieve. Soon I was out pounding the roads, jumping off the train at Howth Junction and running in to the City to work before dawn. Sunday's it was the good aul LSR! Those were my favourite days, heading out with the best bunch of like-minded folks, all out to achieve the same goal. Getting to that start line in October and completing the big one, the marathon.

Between March and October of 2019 I ended up going from just barely finishing the Couch To 5K plan to completing the following races:

Lusk 4 Mile (maybe I'm biased but it is a great race to kick off the year!)
Great Ireland Run 10K
South Dublin 10K
Rock n Roll 5K
Rock n Roll Half Marathon (doing the 5K and Half in 2 days earned a Remix medal)
Frank Duffy 10 Mile
Grant Thornton 5K
Dublin Half Marathon
Dublin Marathon

Completing the Dublin Marathon still feels alien to me. Aside from the medals hanging on my bedroom cupboard door that prove that 'I did that' (and are proving a great inspiration to my 2 and 5 year old sons), it still just feels like a dream. Yet I can still vividly remember approaching the finish line and having all of the thoughts and feelings of not only the months of hard, and at times soul destroying training racing through me, but the thoughts of my Mum and how she may feel to know her son completed one of the great athletic challenges. It was a very emotional moment and one that is impossible to really describe to the full as it is completely unique for every participant.

On the side I had also managed to raise around €3000 for Alzheimer's Ireland through sponsorship and sales of purple ribbons later in November. This was thanks to the kindness and wonderful encouragement from family, friends and work colleagues.

Running changed my life. When I look back at what I had accomplished it put the thought in my head that when you have a goal, when you have something that you really do want to achieve, you really can do it. You can do anything.

And the future? I continue to run, though with the unprecedented global situation that has arisen in 2020 it has proven challenging to get out there and get many miles done. Health and safety first, 100%.

I have the Belfast Marathon, the Longford Ultra and the Chicago Marathon to look forward to when those events are finally able to be held safely. Getting the miles bagged will be tough. I'm no Kipchoge, I'm just a portly lad that likes to get down the road a bit to the best of my ability! But I won't be beaten, I will still get out there and give it my best.

After all, I am a runner.

Ian Cortina

#IAMARUNNER

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