Marathon Man - 40 not out!

Back in 1980, a teenage Martin Kelly who had just left CUS 4 months previously joined 1,421 other athletes finishing the inaugural Dublin City marathon.

Tomorrow, when he has crossed the finish line of the 40th Dublin Marathon, Martin will have completed over 1,040 miles of Dublin marathon running.

In total, 13 athletes this year hold the distinction, and the youngest of those, 58-year-old Kelly, (it was his birthday last week) fondly remembers the first edition of the race, a different era for running in Ireland.

"There was great support along the route as marathon running was a new phenomenon. The course wound its way from Finglas to Raheny and from there it headed back into the city. Perhaps the toughest part of this was that you still had 6 miles left to run so we headed out the Merrion road to St. Vincent’s hospital, up Nutley lane and right at RTE. From there we turned right into Donnybrook to finish at St. Stephens Green and my first marathon completed in 3 hours and 33 minutes. There was a great sense of achievement and we had a great evening’s celebration.”

Pic - Martin Kelly competing in 1980

Golf was his number one sporting passion growing up – and continues to be a passion of his but "team sports at the weekend often got in the way" of any progression in that field.
But it was in CUS that Martin got his first taste of athletics. It was primarily used as a means for keeping fit as school competitions were few and far between, but when talk of a Dublin marathon turned into reality, he was keen to put his three or four days a week training to the test.

As Martin was just 17 at the time of application, he required his mother’s signature for entry - "she thought I was racing a five miler" – and decided to throw caution to the wind. He turned 18 just the week before the race.

Kelly finished just over an hour behind race winner and Irish Olympian Dick Hooper – now a club-mate at Raheny Shamrocks – in a time of three hours and 12 minutes.

A year later and he broke the three-hour barrier for the first and only time, a time of two hours and 47 minutes placing him in the top four per cent of the field.

Pic - from the 1998 Marathon. 

In total, including tomorrow’s race, he will have spent more than 140 hours on the various Dublin routes covering over 1040 miles since 1980 and has been a model of consistency time-wise.

Less than four minutes separate his last three finishing times, while three hours 36 minutes is his average time over the unbroken sequence.

Over 40 years, he has averaged 8:17 per mile pace and this time tomorrow, he’ll have amassed 40 finishers t-shirts.

Spock would have been proud of his protégé. (Only those of a certain era in CUS will understand this line)

On behalf of Cus Pupils Past & Present, we say Congratulations.

Martin will be our Guest of Honour at the upcoming CUS union Christmas Lunch in Milltown Golf Club on December 6th, where he will regale us with stories and anecdotes from both his marathon running and his experience of chauffeuring some big names in the world of golf.