Joanne Fearon from Cobh completes the Malin to Mizen run

At roughly 8pm this evening (Wed 26th), Joanne Fearon reached Mizen Head in West Cork after setting out from Malin Head in Donegal early last Friday morning. Joanne...who lives in Cobh and works in UCC...completed the 550 km trip in a time of 5 days 13 hours and 44 minutes and raised a substantial amount of money for Carers Ireland in the process.

That time if verified will be a new record for the distance by a margin of 30 minutes. While there has been some debate elsewhere about what constitutes a record, how it is achieved or who verifies it, this run is still an incredible achievement for Joanne and her team of supporters. When you consider that it works out at roughly 100 kms per day then that really puts it into perspective.

Following her progress for the last few days was a bit like watching a soap opera! It had elements of everything.......heat, blisters...(multiple!), getting lost, GPS watches flying around, abusive car drivers, hills....lot's of hills, TV coverage, Press coverage, running in the dark, running through the night!........and that's to say nothing about the sheer physical effort and mental exhaustion.

Even while Joanne was running, a piece appeared on the BBC News website about a runner from Tyrone who is running Malin to Mizen for the 3rd year in a row! In the UK, there are multiple events from John O'Groats to Lands End every year. With all this extra publicity, I get the feeling that Malin to Mizen could be taking on a life of it's own?

No doubt Joanne is now taking a well deserved break after her epic run. She has plenty of sleep and eating to catch up on...........after a warm-down of course ;o)

Well done Joanne...