A British marathon champion, the first person to complete the feat has raced the length of Ireland in less than 24 hours.
In under 23 hours and 39 minutes, Robert Pope raced from Galway City on Ireland’s west coast to Dublin, the country’s capital.
The 44-year-old started the 134-mile (215 km) journey after a pint of Guinness in Galway, and he finished the journey on Sunday with another.
He was in good spirits, albeit a little worse for wear, when he spoke later. He jokingly bragged to the sources that he still had trouble climbing the stairs to his apartment despite the exhausting achievement.
A little more than two months ago, Pope, a Liverpool resident, decided to attempt the Mammoth Route on a whim before deciding to use the occasion to raise money for the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF).
There was not much time to get ready. Then, a music festival rapidly became more important than earlier priorities. “I was meant to do an eight-week training programme, but obviously Glastonbury got in the way of that,” he laughed. “I was also working, so it was probably just five weeks of ‘Yeah, I’m happy with that’ training.” he said.
He claimed that the growth of ultrarunning in recent years was large due to the prevalence of these insanely wild runs on social media.
“However, nobody ever makes a failure-related post anyplace. Many people write on social media that they are “gutted” because they failed at something while actually succeeding because they gave it everything they had to get there.” he also said that.
Pope, an accomplished ultramarathon runner, has built a reputation for relishing trials that vary from the unusual to the spectacular. In 2018, he ran more than 15,000 miles (24,141 km) across the US as a tribute to the Forrest Gump movie.
In his book “Becoming Forrest: One Man’s Epic Run Across America”, he detailed his 422-day completion of the course. Throughout his trek across Ireland, he continued to train for long distances in an unorthodox way.
Pope settled up for a peaceful pint of Guinness with his four-man support team at a nearby bar just before starting off from Galway’s Spanish Arch, a picturesque beachside stroll in the city.
Pope put his toes in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and began traveling toward Dublin on a path that should take him more than 24 hours at 22.31 local time (21.31 GMT) on Saturday. The initial steps went quite swiftly, but Pope underestimated how quickly exhaustion would set in.
We had traveled around 24 miles and had been on the road for four hours or so when he commented, “The wheels nearly came off pretty early.” “I don’t think this is me overreacting, but I think I’m going to have to stop,” I recently told the boys
His form eventually improved with the help of his teammates, a well-timed can of Coke, and some painkillers.
To assist his crew in avoiding congested motorways and dual carriageways, he took a route that consisted primarily of historic backroads and a few canal pathways.
