Congrats to visually impaired runner Ross Gallagher who completed his 350th 5k run last weekend!
The photo above shows him last Saturday completing his 218th 5k parkrun. The other 132 5k runs which makes up the balance have been at various road races around the country.
A belated congratulations to Ross Gallagher who completed his 200th 5k parkrun in Glengarriff back on the 12th of April 2025!
It's a fair achievement for anyone to rack up 200 5k parkruns but especially so for a visually impaired runner.
Ross has completed 141 of the 200 at the Tralee parkrun while he has completed 32 in Co Cork.
We should also give credit to all of those volunteers who gave up their time to guide Ross around the various courses.
An article titled "Blind runner hits personal best" appeared in this weeks Southern Star and it's about Ross Gallagher and his PB in the recent Skibbereen 5-mile road race... https://corkrunning.blogspot.com/2025/02/results-of-skibbereen-5m-10m-road-races.html
I noticed recently that visually impaired runner Ross Gallagher completed his 150th 5k parkrun!
This is not only an achievement for Ross but also for the small army of guide runners who made this possible. It shows what's possible and it might encourage more people with a visual impairment to take part in the sport.
127 of the 150 parkruns were in Tralee where Ross has a personal best time of 23:59. Here's the full list...
If anyone with a visual impairment would like to get involved in parkrun, they can find some information here... https://www.fightingblindness.ie/how-we-can-help/advocacy/information-and-resource-hub/sport-and-leisure/
It's worth noting that walkers are also welcome at all 5k parkruns so people can start by walking and building their confidence.
Well done to visually impaired runner Ross Gallagher from Kerry who completed his 100th 5k parkrun in Carlow Town last weekend! None of this would be possible of course without his team of guide runners so fair play to them.
I wonder if Ross is the first visually impaired runner in Ireland to complete 100 parkruns?
While the media focus is usually on the winners of a race, it's worth noting some of the remarkable performances further down the field.
With that in mind, a big shout out to visually impaired runner Ross Gallagher who completed the Tralee Marathon over the weekend! The Kerry native completed the 26.2 mile course in a time of 5 hours and 51 minutes and wore out 4 guide runners in the process 😉
Ross is a big supporter of the road races in Kerry and competes in a good few of the Cork events as well. Ciarrai Abú!
 |
| Ross with his team of pacers |