Tipperary man completes 100-kilometre run to raise money for two charities

Thurles man Darragh Byrne took on a 100-kilometre running challenge on Sunday, July 20, to raise money for Dementia Ireland and the Irish Cancer Society.

The challenge saw him run a one-kilometre stretch of road by his house and back 50 times, with the challenge taking just over 11 hours to complete.

READ MORE: Tributes paid to popular Tipperary man who was 'a gentleman'

The idea for the challenge came about one day while Darragh was out running with friends, where he said the idea to run the path 50 times came into his head at random.

His friends told him that he couldn’t say that and not follow it up, so he decided he would use the opportunity to raise funds for two causes very close to him.

“I said I might as well kill two birds with one stone and do it for a cause, instead of just doing it for the sake of it. So then, actually, my poor Granny has been battling dementia for a couple of years now, so there was no better cause than to kind of do it for her. And then, of course, so many people are affected by cancer as well. So again, another worthwhile cause to raise the money for as well, so that's the main reason,” he said.

Darragh spoke of how his challenge contained some unintentional symbolism, with the repetition of the route so consistently reminding him of the struggles those with dementia go through in their daily lives.

“This came to me in the last maybe two weeks. The concept of dementia, and what it kind of does for a person that does suffer from the disease itself, is that idea, well, in terms of vascular dementia, anyway, that my granny suffers from, is the short term memory is shot, it's affected more so than long term memory, and I suppose the running itself, doing those 50 2 kilometre loops symbolizes that a bit, because of the fact that you're doing that same thing again, and then all of a sudden you have to go and do it again. And it's what somebody with dementia of that kind, unfortunately, though they may not be aware of it, is experiencing. You could have a conversation with somebody, and a couple of minutes later, you could have the same conversation, and they can't remember it, you know. So I suppose there was a bit of symbolism there that I didn't think about at the start. But as I got closer, I kind of realised it was just something that came to mind, like I started talking about as I got closer, and then on the day of the run, it really hit me. I was like this is kind of like what dementia might feel like, or from my times being in with my granny, talking to her while she's kind of been slowly but surely battling it, and kind of that short term memory, as I said, being so limited that it really did symbolise it, I suppose is the best word for it.”

Darragh spoke of the possibility of having to cancel the run due to poor weather conditions at 4am on the morning of the run, but he decided not to let this affect the event, and decided to commence the run in the heavy rain, hoping it would clear up.

“We started at 4am, and it was absolutely bucketing rain down at four o'clock in the morning. And there was a small bit of jeopardy, in terms of the run not going ahead, but in the first 10k, I was absolutely soaked to the bone, but it started to lighten up, and then there wasn't as much rain for another while. I had done a training run a couple of weeks before it, where I covered 60k on that road anyway. So I had kind of known what was ahead of me. I might have ran that first 60k a little bit faster, and that kind of humbled me a little bit, but it gave me an idea as to what kind of pace I needed to be at. But again, the first 60, 70, I'd say even 80k, because I'd kind of done that running-wise before in the past, up to 80k, that that was fairly smooth sailing, you know, there was obviously aches and pains in the legs, things that kind of come and go and, that kind of a thing for the first 80. But then 80 to 90 was tough. Like, when you say somebody that you only have kind of ten of those out and backs to do again, like, you've less than, you've less than a half marathon to go like, for somebody who's done a good bit of half marathon training and has run half marathons in the past, it was just so tough, by comparison to previous efforts of that distance. And so it was only really that 80 to 90, even, I suppose, 80 to, kind of 95 and then that last 5k of course, you have two more, three more out and backs, and then you're home.”

READ MORE: WATCH: Inspiring scenes as Tipperary's hurling heroes arrive back in Semple Stadium on Monday

The support for Darragh’s run and the charities has been huge, with over €5,200 raised so far at the time of writing, including over €1,000 being donated on the day of the run itself.

“The support has been amazing. When I first announced that I was going to do this, understandably, you don't see this big, massive influx of support straight away, because it's, it's still a bit away, like I have to do all the training and stuff before that, that big influx of people to the event itself starts to happen. But as we got closer and closer, I suppose we got the word out, and to relatives, and to the people in Thurles, and people that would know me like, and then they start to find out, and we started to see the support come in along in the form of, obviously donations and kind messages and stuff. We've surpassed our €5,000 goal, on the day, actually, which was really good to see as well. I think we raised like €1,200 or so on the actual day itself, just from sharing stories and putting up, idonate links and stuff like that. So even with the match being on, it did gather some momentum on the day, which was great.”

Darragh’s idonate page is still live online.

If you wish to support Darragh and the two causes he is raising money for, you can access the donation here.