Hundreds of charities benefit from tired legs

FUNDRAISING:HUNDREDS OF charities will benefit from the fundraising efforts of thousands of people who ran the marathon yesterday.

A total of 150 runners started for the Wicklow Hospice with each raising a minimum of €150. The hospice has already received a minimum donation of €1 million from an anonymous donor.

Ryan Montgomery, who works as the development officer for Athletics Ireland, was one of the first home for the hospice fundraising group completing the marathon in an impressive

two hours, 52 minutes.

“It wasn’t me, that’s for sure,” said Mr Montgomery. “Great credit goes to Billy Porter and Brendan O’Shea who put this together. They put the focus on the hospice and that’s how we got €1 million.”

More than 50 runners took part to raise funds for the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre in Drogheda, Co Meath.

Trainer David Carrie finished the marathon in two hours, 45 minutes and went back to the finish to anxiously wait for all the others. “There’s some who could not run two miles when we started and now they are running marathons,” he said.

Former Sawdoctors’ drummer Johnny Donnelly chalked up another achievement in his incredible quest to run a marathon each month for the next four years.

“I said I would do one a month, but I’m at 50 something so I’m ahead of myself,” he said.

Mr Donnelly runs in aid of Seachange, an Irish charity which works “to eradicate world poverty through micro credit – giving tiny loans to the world’s poorest to help them help themselves”.

Ultra marathon runner Tony Mangan (53) used yesterday’s marathon as the start and not the end of a 40,000 kilometre journey which will take him east to west around the world over the next three years finishing where he started with the

Dublin Marathon scheduled for 2013.

Mr Mangan, who was running for the charity, Aware, which supports people with depression, pushed a modified pram which will carry his entire belongings for the next three years around the route yesterday and still managed a time of four hours, 40 minutes.

The “World Jog”, as he calls it will be put in the record books. “Many people think I’m going to be killed or kidnapped, but I have some very brave sponsors,” he said.