Marathon Running: 'The Most Liberating Feeling Ever'
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PAT CLEARY
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By CATHOLINE BUTLER
VANCOUVER - Cork-born Pat Cleary is a marathon runner who travels all over the world to run in marathons and he relishes every minute of it. Last month he competed in Tokyo, Japan.
"To be a runner, you need to be very dedicated," said Pat. "Obviously, there are people who look at running as being a kind of mindless pursuit, but unless you do it you won't understand what it is like to be a runner.
"Running gives you the freest most liberating feeling ever, some people find it difficult to understand how you can actually run for 33 or 42 kilometres. But the fact is that once you start building up your stamina and you're out there you just want to keep running.
"I told my wife Ira that I've never been more alive than when I am half dead from running. I suppose the other way to describe the freedom that you feel in running would be if you were a skier at the top of Whistler mountain on a clear day with fresh powder all around you and you just come skiing down through that powder ....you're just one step away from heaven."
Then Pat laughed and said, "or another way of describing running ....is that you have to be totally nuts to do it."
The Tokyo race was 42.2 kilometres and Pat finished in three hours and 56 minutes. Some of the marathon races where Cleary has received a "finishers medal" are three from Vancouver, one in Seattle, one in Boston, one in Dublin, one in Buenos Aires, one in Kelowna, and, of course, one from Japan.
Pat is already making plans to run more international marathons. Next February he will be be running in Luxor, Egypt. The race will be run on the West Bank of the Nile, through some areas of antiquity, and also through the sugar cane fields of the local farmers. The race is a 10 kilometre loop and competitors have to do the loop four times.
Another race which will be very interesting is in Antarctica in 2010. Pat said this will be a very demanding race as it will be run on ice and snow and competitors will need special grips attached to their runners to grab onto the ice.
Because of weather conditions the race will probably add another hour to the race time. Personnel from the research stations in Antarctica will provide moral support with hot drinks and food for the runners.
Pat Cleary is a well-known member of the Vancouver Irish community who owns Cleary Insurance Agencies.
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