'Back garden marathon' raising funds for NHS staff

Veteran Cookstown charity runner Joe Curry has raised more than £3,000 for frontline workers by running round his back garden.
Veteran runner Joe Curry who ran a marathon in his garden for the Intensive Care Society.Veteran runner Joe Curry who ran a marathon in his garden for the Intensive Care Society.
Veteran runner Joe Curry who ran a marathon in his garden for the Intensive Care Society.

Sixty-four-year-old Joe admitted it was one of the hardest challenges he has ever attempted.

Donations can still be made through his GofundMe page and the money will go The Intensive Care Society.

He is still recovering from the seven-hour effort on a warm and sunny afternoon at the end of last month.

“My daughter works in the Antrim Hospital and I felt I had to do something to help those people battling Covid-19,” he said.

“I set a target of £800 and I quickly raised £2,000. The appeal is ongoing and I probably have over £3,000 by this point.”

“I’ve done a lot of things like Ultras, but that run round the garden was the hardest

yet.”

Joe said he worked the course out by measuring a few laps on Garmin and then worked out it took 50 laps to get one mile.

“I multiplied that for 26.2 miles (the marathon distance) and got 1,310 laps.”

Joe found that he lost the satellite signal on his Garmin watch every so often because he was running in the narrow confines of his garden.

“I could have ended up doing 30 miles,” he joked. “In seven hours I could have walked it. The first 15 miles were at a nice pace.”

The Cookstown man, who ran sixty miles for charity to celebrate his 60th birthday, said he just continued running until his Garmin showed 26.2 miles.

People came into the garden and I just stopped and chatted with them.

“It wasn’t about time or anything like that. It was about completing the distance, but it was hard work,” he went on.

For his charitable efforts over the years - he had raised more than £50,000 for various charities since 1995 - Joe was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours back in 2017.

The donations for his ‘back garden marathon’ will go to help people working in Intensive Care, saving those who have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19.

While most people who get coronavirus will have mild symptoms, a small percentage will end up on intensive care and may die.

As the disease burden of Covid-19 intensifies, so will the strain on the Intensive Care team and the Society has their back, and are best placed to address the needs of our heroes.

Joe said people can make a donation by going to his GoFundMe page.

He thanked everyone who has contributed and stressed the money was going towards a very good cause.

--- A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

You can also enjoy unlimited access to the best news from across Northern Ireland and the UK by subscribing to newsletter.co.uk With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Thank you

Related topics: