British man runs the width of Ireland in under 24 hours
Written by Angie Sharma on August 15, 2022
A British ultramarathon runner drank a pint of Guinness right before setting off on the run that would make him the first person to successfully run the width of Ireland in under 24 hours.
Robert Pope of Liverpool, England, downed a pint of Guinness and set off from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Galway City and ran westward for 23 hours and 39 minutes, arriving at the opposite coast in Dublin.
Pope ran a total of 133.5 miles and celebrated with a second pint of Guinness.
The runner said the project was born out of a conversation he had with some fellow runners at an event in Britain.
“I gave myself a 40 percent chance of actually pulling it off,” Pope told CBC Radio. “Maybe there was some sort of karmic reward in that because I managed to pull the crazy thing off.”
Pope said he was surprised to discover he was the first person to make the shore-to-shore run in under 24 hours.
“I actually was surprised when I just couldn’t find any record of anyone having done it,” he said.
Pope’s run raised money for the World Wide Fund for Nature.
