Trio complete unique marathon challenge

The best pals and self-confessed couch potatoes embarked on a unique marathon challenge earlier this year.

Jim Kane from Portballintrae, Lee Galbraith and Matthew Jordan (both from Coleraine) vowed to run across Europe and America to raise money for a charity close to their hearts.

The trio recently achiever their target of completing six marathons in 2011.

The Arctic to Desert Challenge has taken the plucky lads to Barcelona, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, the Arctic Circle and finally Las Vegas.

The lads have now vowed to give their weary legs a well-earned break.

“The whole adventure has been great so far,” said Jim.

“It has been a struggle some of the time but we have made it, every last mile.

“The latest one was pretty good fun, but a hell of a relief to have ended the whole thing.

“We ended up with pretty bad injuries to Matthew, and a few achy areas on me.

“I ran with Matt this time but it was crippled running and we came in at five hours 17 minutes which is well away from our personal bests.

“We still managed to dance\skip across the finish line!

“Lee Galbraith however, the evil genius behind the entire Arctic to Desert Challenge, burned up the Las Vegas strip like a man possessed.

“He was running ahead of us.

“He was clocking just a couple of minutes below his personal best until mile 18 when by his own admission he was hitting the wall pretty hard.

“In the end he knocked 41 minutes off his personal best! If he was a racehorse we’d be demanding a stewards enquiry! Three hours and 33 minutes. Absolutely amazing!”

Jim - who works for the National Library in Scotland - had very personal reasons for taking on the challenge.

He lost his mother Jean Kane, a former community midwife covering the Ballymoney and Ballycastle areas, back in 2005 after a long battle with Motor Neurone Disease.

In his mother’s memory, and as a way of raising money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Jim and his pals decided to set themselves this punishing challenge.

Jim said on behalf of the three he wished to thank everyone for their support to date.

Jim took a bit of a ribbing from his pals for describing them as his heroes in a newspaper article back in June.

But undeterred, Jim reaffirmed his admiration for them, adding:

“I unashamedly admit that Matthew Jordan is my hero.

“Whilst running in Tromso, I tore a hip muscle at mile six and Matthew stopped with me just after I’d torn the muscle and was limping along.

“I said ‘Matt, I can’t finish this one. I can’t run.’ ‘You can’t run? Ah well. You’ll have to skip!’ then skipped away giggling like a schoolgirl!

“I limped for 20 miles just so I could finish and try to skip across the finish line.

“Then during the Belfast Marathon the wonderful people were giving out sweets and energy drinks along the way, holding them up to the runners. Matthew had seen this along the way and thinks he accidentally stole some kid’s jelly baby!”

So what next for the plucky trio?

“We were contacted by the Motor Neurone Disease Associati on to say that they’re going to nominate us for a Justgiving award for ‘Endurance Fund raisers of the Year’,” said Jim.

“There’s a bit of restlessness now we’ve finished. We’re considering several options including a six-legged race up Mount Kilimanjaro, cycling from New York to Los Angeles in less than three weeks and maybe an Iron Man Triathlon.

“Or if I get my way, we might just go to the pub and have a few pints and a pie!”

You can donate to the lads’ cause at www.justgiving.com/Arctic2Desert