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This Saturday marks Kay and Joe O’Regan’s 60th wedding anniversary.
At 83-years-young, they are known by many as “the marathon couple”, due to the fact they ran their last marathon together in 2016 to celebrate their 80th birthdays.
To this day they still run six to seven miles four times a week.
Irish Country Living meets them on a sunny summer’s morning in Enniscorthy, where they live on the outskirts of town.
The plan is to talk all things running, health, fitness and ageing. While these topics are discussed (you’ll see), Kay and Joe’s love story, vast life experience, humility and humour just keep getting in the way.
But maybe these latter elements are just, if not more important than the aforementioned when it comes to staying forever young.
Kay is originally from near Adamstown in Co Wexford. Her father was the eldest son on a farm but chose not to inherit it.
Joe hails from Kinvara in Co Galway. Speaking to him prior on the phone to arrange the particulars of this interview, it is clear almost immediately he hasn’t forgotten where he comes from.
We mistake him for a Wexford man, saying he must be delighted with the county’s recent spate of hurling success.
He quickly quips in jest that this is nothing but a source of disappointment for him at present. His allegiance has and always will be in the west.
Kay and Joe met in London when they were 20. Kay was there for a year before she and Joe happened upon each other. Joe had just moved over for a three-month working holiday with his friends.
They were both bus conductors, a job many Irish people occupied at the time.
Joe can still recount the minute details of their first encounters.
“You were on the 52 bus, I was on the 16,” Joe tells his wife. “The terminal was at Victoria Station and they used to go in and out at the same time.
“We met clocking in and out there. The 16 bus would come out, go up Park Lane, turn right at Hyde Park Corner and go up to Marble Arch. The 52 would come out the same way, go as far as Hyde Park Corner, but would turn left in a different direction.”
“And we’d wave to each other,” Kay interjects.
“On the last day of that particular shift – you would be on the same shift for the one week – we got chatting again and you offered me that Spangle (a type of sweet),” Joe recalls. “I took the Spangle and sin scéal eile. Eve gave the apple to Adam, she gave me a Spangle.
“I took the Spangle and we made a date. We went to the pictures. I still remember the name of the picture, My Wife’s Family. Ted Ray was the star in it.”
The couple got married two years later, moved to west London and had two children; Fintan and Sarah. All-in-all, they lived in London for 41 years before returning to Ireland.
Starting at 50
It was during this period in London that Kay and Joe took to running but, interestingly, not until the year before they turned 50. Joe says that he “played a lot of hurling as a young chap” and that both of them played tennis at a leisurely level, but running was never really on their radar.
Kay was the first to take the leap of faith, even though it was slightly unintentional.
“We started training at 49. We were sitting at home one night, our son used to go for a little run around the block for his football training and rugby training.
“One night it was pouring rain and I said, ‘Aren’t you going out today?’ He said, ‘No, it’s raining’. To which I replied, ‘You can’t let something like a little drop of rain stop you’. He said, ‘Right so, tomorrow night you join me’. I did. We ran around the block, it nearly killed me. That’s what started us off.”
Of course, Kay then roped Joe into going running with her, and unbeknownst to him, entered them in the London Marathon.
“I said: ‘What, do the London Marathon, you must be crazy!’” Joe smirks. “She said: ‘We’ve entered,” so we had to start training then. We didn’t know how to train really, we just started doing long runs. Anyway, we turned up and did it. We had a great first half, but we blew up in the second half. We just didn’t know how to train.”
From there they joined a running club and got more proficient. Kay has completed 113 marathons and Joe has done 27, as he always had more of a preference towards half-marathons.
Throughout their years of running, it is the travelling they did in tandem with the marathons that is their favourite aspect of it all. They have ran marathons in most European capital cities, as well as ticking Boston and New York off the list.
They also did the Melbourne marathon while visiting their daughter Sarah, who lives down under. Here Kay recorded her best time of 3.34.
“We would go do the marathon in those places and then we would have the holiday afterwards,” Kay explains. “We would never have been to most of those places without the marathons. They brought us around the world.”
The couple recount colourful tales from these adventures, none of which would fit on these pages. There’s probably a book in there somewhere!
Homeward bound
In 1997 Kay and Joe moved back to Ireland, with Fintan settled in Surrey and Sarah in Melbourne. Having spent such a huge portion of their lives in England, it was a big decision to make and one they still contemplate. However, joining their local running club soon after returning helped them settle back in.
Joe recalls that Clare won the All-Ireland hurling final the week they moved home. He remembers this due to the fact that the man moving their furniture was from the Banner and with the big victory on Sunday, it was Tuesday before their belongings arrived.
On Wednesday another guy came to connect their phone. Upon seeing their running medals and memorabilia in the hall, he suggested they link up with Tony Wickham, a publican and shop owner in Enniscorthy who was also involved in a running group.
“On Saturday morning we went into town to Wickham’s,” Joe says. “We asked: ‘Are you Tony Wickham?’ He replied that he was. We were chatting and he said to meet in Abbey Square the following morning, that a few of them gather there to run. Kay was the only girl, there were no other women at that time.”
Kay and Joe are still involved in Slaney Olympic Athletics Club, proudly sporting their club tops as we chat over coffee.
Since this first foray, many more women have started running with the club. Joe reckons there are now more women than men and that the catalyst for the ladies joining was the inception of evening 5ks.
As regards advice for anyone thinking of running a marathon, Joe’s nugget of wisdom is one many farmers will relate to. “You can’t fatten a pig the day of the mart. You have to put the work in.”
“That’s his party piece,” Kay adds with a grin.
Her own steer is to train with people, that is what makes it enjoyable, but when crunch time comes, run your own race.
“When I’m running a race I prefer to do my own thing. It’s great to train with people, but when you’re doing a race it’s hard, because they’re feeling good when you’re not and you’re feeling good when they’re not.”
About ageing
Listening to Kay and Joe’s interesting encounters told with wit, Irish Country Living almost forgets to ask their thoughts on ageing. As always, the couple keep each other on their toes (key to a happy marriage by all accounts).
“I think a lot of it’s in the mind,” Joe muses.
“Not really Joe,” Kay counters, “because if you keep yourself fit and you eat healthily that’s what makes the difference.”
In the end, they settle that both a positive mental attitude and healthy eating alongside exercising are equally important. They don’t eat any rubbish and clearly get plenty of physical activity.
“You don’t think about it (ageing) really,” Kay reflects. “You know you’re going to slow down, you’re not as fast now as you were four or five years ago. But I mean, you’re still doing it. The way I look at it, it doesn’t really matter what time you do, as long as you finish. Aim to finish and that’s all I ever do. If you have a good run, that’s good and if you have a bad run, what the heck, you finished.
“You come to a certain peak and you’ll start going backwards then instead of forwards. But the mind stays the same. You say: ‘Oh yeah, I ran past her and she’s only 24’. I know she’s only starting and all the rest, but you can still get past them, you’re still not last. Even if you’re last, so what really. But I haven’t been last yet anyway,” she laughs.
Joe, well he’s still in essence the same lad who hurled in Kinvara all those years ago. “I don’t feel any different mind wise now than I did when I was 21.
“There’s a run in Oylegate in August, we’ll probably do the 10k. But even last night we were saying that we might train up and do a half marathon in October in Galway.”
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