Donovan creates marathon history

Date Published: 06-Feb-2009

CITY ‘ultra runner’ Richie Donovan created his own bit of global athletics history in Sydney, Australia, in the early hours of yesterday morning (Irish time) when he completed seven marathons on seven continents in an unprecedented time of five days, ten hours, and eight minutes.

The 42-year old city man was exhausted but elated when he became the first person in the world to complete the task, inside his projected time, along the promenade at Brighton LeSands, following a gruelling schedule which began when he ran a full marathon on his own in the snow in Antarctica last Saturday.

From there, it was on to the heat of Cape Town, South Africa; another 26.2 mile run in sunny Dubai; a late night marathon through the snow in central London on Sunday night; more snow on the streets of Toronto, Canada; and back to hot and sunny climes in Santiago, Chile; before finishing with his seventh ‘solo’ marathon inside a week in Sydney at 12.58pm (local time) yesterday.

Sleep deprivation was the main problem encountered by the Galway athlete during a punishing schedule in which…