Michael Kelly will arrive onto Leeson Street Dublin on the morning of October 26th with more than a clock in his head. He wants daylight on sub four hours. No squeaking under the gantry. No debates about chips or corrals. After years hovering around four hours, he is chasing something that starts with a three and has a bit of breathing room.
Michael grew up in Ballycastle in North Mayo beside Céide Fields and Downpatrick Head. School days meant cross country, hurdles and plenty of GAA. Work carried him to Dublin and then everywhere. Today he is a regional engineer and spends most weeks bouncing between sites in Ireland, Britain and the continent. “I’m probably doing sixty or seventy thousand kilometres a year,” he says. “Always gone, always back on the road. That’s why the runners are always in the boot, you either go drinking or you go running, and I’ve had enough drink.”
From Club Runs to Marathons
In 2013 he helped bring the local athletics club back to life. What started as a nudge to get young people moving became a decade of community races. “We didn’t really know what we were doing,” he admits. “It was five and eight kilometre races, then we tried a coastal ten, then one day I said feck it, let’s do a half marathon. Everything always felt doable.”
The marathon itch began with after a talk from the legendary Gerry Duffy (of 32 marathons in 32 counties in 32 days fame) in Ballina. He booked Dublin for 2014 and, for festive drama, booked his wife too. “I handed her a ticket for Christmas,” he laughs. “It was my excuse to get out running, but she had to do it as well.”
He ran 4 hours 12 minutes. “I walked about two hundred metres on the Stillorgan Road, up the bridge, I was absolutely wrecked. But it was an experience like nothing else. I regretted not doing one in my twenties or thirties. I was forty starting, and I thought, how did I miss this?”
They even jogged for a bus afterwards, then shuffled through an industrial estate in Finglas to their hotel. “I told her it’d be good for us, get the acid out of the legs,” he says. “The next morning we walked into Applegreen on the M4 like robots. People must have thought we’d escaped from somewhere.”
Setbacks, Milestones and Sanity
Since then there have been highs and lows. One year he ran 4:42 on what turned out to be a fractured tibia. “I was never giving up,” he shrugs. “You can be done at fifteen kilometres, but turning back doesn’t come into my vocabulary. There’s a finish line, and you get across it, that’s it.” Another year he hit 4:01, close enough to taste the sub 4 milestone but still out of reach. Another time he barely trained at all and “got exactly what I deserved.” Yet he always returns. “It’s the mind space it gives me,” he says. “You get out of the car after a long day, go for a run, and suddenly life feels normal again. It’s what keeps me sane.”
This year he decided to do it properly. Straight after last year’s race he ran five kilometres every day for November. He joined a gym for the first time. “I always thought the gym wasn’t for me. But this crowd, it’s circuits, bikes, wall balls. Country people, no pretension. I used to cheat and pick up the four kilo ball instead of the six, then swap at the last one in case the coach saw me. But it’s changed everything, my back is stronger, my core is stronger, no cramps. It’s life-changing.”
The only cloud is an ankle that flared up in summer. “At first we thought it was a tendon, now it looks like a bone bruise. I still run on it, sometimes it eases off, sometimes I get three hundred metres and have to turn back. It’s stopping me, but it’s not stopping me. I’m not giving up.”
Small Victories and Big Reminders
There were reminders along the way that the work is paying off. The Bundoran 10 mile felt strong. Elche half marathon in Spain was the big one. “I ran one forty-eight, my best in ten years. I beat the lads I usually travel with and I haven’t stopped gloating, every conversation was one-four-eight, one-four-eight.” The Warriors Run over Knocknarea proved the gym had worked. “I pushed myself to the limits, ankle sore, rain lashing, and I woke up the next day waiting for the pain. Nothing. I couldn’t believe it.”
He even had the pleasure of being beaten by his fifteen-year-old son in a local 5k. “He went past me and I said, fair play, you’ve got it. His prize from his Dad was a Strava subscription for the year,” Michael laughs. “I used to think all that was pretentious, but it changes you. You see your progress. It drives you on.”
His Garmin coach plan is set at three thirty. “Not to do three thirty, I just want under four, but I need the cushion. The problem is I can’t run as slow as it tells me. It says six minute kilometres. I come back at five-fifteens. Maybe that’s why the ankle’s at me. But I’m learning to listen.”
Chasing Daylight in Dublin
Balancing that with work is a challenge. “The body is definitely more tired after the long journeys,” he says. “It’s an hour and twenty just to leave Mayo, never mind Dublin or Belfast. But distance doesn’t bother me. People say, Jesus, you’ve to drive to Dublin. I don’t see it as a problem. Same with running, it’s just a destination. You’ll get there.”
He has also drawn energy from chance encounters. He joined Seán Clifford for a stretch of his 2,750 kilometre Wild Atlantic Way run. “I thought, if he can get up and run seventy to a hundred kilometres every single day, then I can manage this ankle. The body is stronger than we think.” He has run with Mary Nolan Hickey, the only woman to have done every Dublin Marathon since it began. “That’s inspiration right there,” he says. “And to stand beside her at number pickup last year, that was an honour.”
As for what Dublin would mean this year, he is clear. “If it’s 3:59:59 it means nothing. I’ve already done 4:01. I want a number that’s clean, that’s daylight. If it’s 3:45, 3:50, that’s the dream. I want to be ahead of the gun time, not just the chip. Otherwise I’ll feel robbed.”
His advice to others is straightforward. “Run with a friend, let them be your alarm clock and you be theirs. Don’t let weight put you off, it’s your race. Don’t let rain stop you, because the shower after feels the same if you ran three kilometres or twenty. Sign up early, write it on the wall. Use something like Strava, it’s sixty quid a year and it’s the best coach you’ll ever have. And just put the runners on and press start. Once that arrow goes green, you don’t go back.”
Michael Kelly started Dublin at forty and wishes he had found it earlier. He is giving it a proper rattle now. Daylight on sub four. A clean number on the clock. And maybe, just maybe, a pint at the end.