Richard Donovan, the Galway born ultra distance runner, has become the first
person to ever run seven marathons on seven continents in
less than seven days. In fact, Richard completed this
amazing achievement in a staggering time of 5 days, 9 hours
and 8 minutes. In that time he has ran a total of 295km (183
miles) and has flown 43,000km.
Richard completed his marathon
in Sydney this morning coming
in ahead of the schedule he had given himself. He had
previously completed marathons in
Antarctica, Cape Town, Dubai, London, Toronto and Santiago.
Richard's world record attempt
is dedicated to drawing attention to GOAL's work with the
vulnerable population of Darfur in Western Sudan.
John O'Shea, GOAL CEO, said;
"Richard has done something truly remarkable. Not only has
he set a record that will not be easily beaten but he has
also brought much needed attention to the on-going tragedy
in
Darfur. Everyone in GOAL thanks him for his
efforts to raise awareness of this humanitarian catastrophe
and congratulate him on his new record."
Richard began his quest at 2.50am on Saturday in the Russian town of
Nova, which is
4,200 kilometres south of
Cape Town, on mainland Antarctica.
Completing the marathon in a
time of 4.39.29 in temperatures of approximately -20 degrees
Celsius, Richard immediately got on a plane to
South Africa for the next
stage of his challenge.
He then completed marathons in Cape Town later that day
and Dubai
the following morning, meaning he had run three marathons in
two days.
Despite the snow storm that
shut down most of London on Monday, Richard
completed his fourth marathon there in the early hours of
Monday morning.
At
1am
on Tuesday morning Richard completed the Toronto leg of his challenge in a time of 4.07.
He then finished his Santiago marathon before jumping on a plane to
Sydney to complete
the final marathon of the challenge. Over the past 129 hours
Richard has endured temperatures ranging from -20c to +32c
and only slept in the economy class seats of airplanes
between continents.
He hopes that he has
established a record which may never be beaten. Before he
left he said; "I want to run this series of marathons faster
then anyone has done before and at the same time I hope to
attract plenty attention to the tragedy of Darfur."
Tickets, Tables and Sponsorships are still
available for the 2009 GOAL Boston Ball on March 6th at
the Westin Copley!