On October 3rd. schooldays friends, Colm Roche, Castleisland and Padraig Hilliard from Currow competed in and completed the full Belfast City Marathon.
It was the fulfillment of a joint Covid lock-down training regime which turned to ambition as they racked up the miles on the roads around Castleisland.
This led to them taking part in the virtual Belfast Half Marathon on the May bank holiday weekend.
Appetites for Challenges
After taking some time to consider their next move, the event had whetted their appetites for more challenges of this kind.
They decided to go for the big one – the real one in October in Belfast.
The lads also took their time in considering a charity to which they’d like to donate their efforts and the eventual cash amount they hoped to generate.
Colm and Pádraig looked at many of the great Irish charities and they decided to fund-raise for Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland.
Suicide Prevention Programmes
They soon realised this was the cause for them as it offers mental health awareness and suicide prevention programmes to their peers – to people of their age.
That big Belfast race began on the Sunday morning of October 3rd in the history soaked Stormont Estate and took in areas often mentioned on news bulletins during the troubles.
While the going was tough Colm and Pádraig enjoyed the sheer atmosphere and experience of the whole event.
Backing a Brilliant Cause
However, as they crossed the finish line, the lads agreed that the pure joy of the moment was made even sweeter knowing that they had raised money for such a brilliant cause.
They had launched their fundraiser by means of a GoFundMe campaign. They wound up, probably thousands of road miles and hours later with a pair of unique Belfast City Marathon 2021 souvenir medals and, most importantly from their points of view, an impressive €4009.51 cheque for their chosen charity.
Isn’t that some worthwhile Covid lock-down story.
If you’d like to find out more about Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland you can do so with a click on the link here: https://yspi.ie/
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