A Derry man has smashed a 1,000-day running challenge that he started during the coronavirus pandemic two years ago.
Ronan O’Flaherty, from Culmore, set himself a challenge to run for 1,000 days to alleviate lockdown boredom, believing that it would only last a few weeks.
However, having first set off in March 2020, he hasn’t stopped running since. The Derry City native has run at least 5k every day, on one occasion running a full marathon all in aid of Foyle Hospice.
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“The first day was March 19, 2020; lockdown hadn’t quite started but we were being told to work from home, it just went from there and didn’t stop,” Ronan said.
“It became part of every day and I did a bit of fundraising coming up to a year of running but for the ‘comma day’, the 1,000 days, I thought I should try and do something a bit bigger for that.”
Ronan celebrated running his 1,000th day straight by doing 5k in laps around the stunning grounds Foyle Hospice, which were glistening with a light layer of frost and snow in the winter sun.
“I have never spent time in the hospice grounds,” said Ronan.
“I didn’t know there was a natural path the whole way around and when the sun came out and the snow stopped it was really lovely.
"But having lived close by Foyle Hospice for over 30 years, I thought I should take the chance to support it as much as possible.”
Throughout the 1,000 days, so much has changed in Ronan’s life, but he never missed one day pounding the pavements. Ronan kept running while living in Belfast, where he used to run with Dub Runners.
And despite being made redundant from his job, he then moved back to Derry, joining Foyle Valley Athletic Club and found a new job as a software engineer in Seagate.
He also found his future-to-be wife, Catherine Feeney, within the 1,000-day challenge.
“I didn’t even know Catherine at the beginning of all this; I have proposed since and now we are planning the wedding,” he added.
Catherine was at Foyle Hospice to support her husband-to-be and said he has been bitten so hard by the running bug, she believes he will still run on the actual day of their wedding.
“It will stop whenever Ronan feels that he’s done all he wants to do, I’m not going to put a time or date on it,” she said.
“I remember when I first knew of the streak, it was something I really got on board with and I started going to the Park Runs with him to show a bit of support. He never had a set date in mind to stop, suddenly it was a year, then it was two years and now 1,000 days!”
However, Ronan is not quite finished just yet and has already almost completed a series of park runs, working his way through the alphabet. Parkruns are free community running events that take place all over the world.
“There is a park run challenge where you can tour around and do A-Z in the alphabet except X, there’s nowhere starting with X where we can do it, but I have already done one in 24 hours in Poland in Zielona Góra,” said Ronan.
“The most of them I’ve run have been in Ireland and England and I only have two letters to go. I was even keeping it in mind when looking at a honeymoon!”
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