A NORTHSIDE teacher is celebrating with a well-earned rest after becoming the only woman in Ireland this year to run at least five kilometres in each of the 32 counties.
Mary Phelan, who is a primary school teacher at St Brigid’s GNS Glasnevin, undertook the challenge as part of Go Active Ireland’s Ultimate 32 Counties Challenge in which entrants from around the country run in all 32 counties over a 12 month period.
Mary is still relatively new to running, having only taken to the road in the last few years after more than 30 years of officiating basketball games. But she was delighted to take part in the challenge and raise some much needed funds for the MS Society.
“I saw it on Facebook that the challenge was starting on January 1 and I had initially signed up to do a similar challenge within the four provinces,” Mary told Northside People.
“I had completed that challenge by the middle of February so I thought why not try the 32 counties? By that stage I had already done a couple of counties within the four provinces so it just went on from there.
“I tried to do a few counties in particular that had a charity connection. It was up to ourselves to choose, as they gave us a list of counties that you could pick that had bonus points, but a lot of the time I went to the events that had charities because you felt that what you were doing was going towards a good cause as well as getting the benefit from the activity itself.”
The majority of Mary’s charitable efforts went towards the MS Society, who she had donated to previously when running in the Dublin mini-marathon back in June.
Her husband, Willie, has been battling MS for the last 17 years and Mary was delighted to meet him and supporting friend Deborah McArdle as she crossed the finish line at her final run in Cavan last month.
To donate to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland visit www.ms-society.ie/pages/donate.
