Snow falls as Derry’s Ronan smashes 1,000-day run for Foyle Hospice

Ronan O’Flaherty, from Culmore, set himself a challenge to run for 1,000 days to alleviate lockdown boredom, believing that it would only last a few weeks.

However, he first set off in March 2020 and hasn’t stopped running since. He has run at least 5k every day, on one occasion running a full marathon, and has just clocked up his 1,000th day.

“The first day was March 19, 2020; lockdown hadn’t quite started but we were being told to work from home, it just went from there and didn’t stop,” laughed Ronan.

“It became part of every day and I did a bit of fundraising coming up to a year of running but for the ‘comma day’, the 1,000 days, I thought I should try and do something a bit bigger for that.”

Ronan celebrated running his 1,000th day straight by doing 5k in laps around the stunning grounds of Foyle Hospice, which were glistening with a light layer of frost and snow in the winter sun.

“I have never spent time in the Hospice grounds,” said Ronan.

“I didn’t know there was a natural path the whole way around and when the sun came out and the snow stopped it was really lovely.”

Throughout the 1,000 days, so much has changed in Ronan’s life, but he never missed one day pounding the pavements. Ronan kept running while living in Belfast, where he used to run with Dub Runners. despite being made redundant from his job, He then moved back to Derry, joined Foyle Valley Athletic Club and found a new job as a software engineer in Seagate. Also, within these 1,000 days, Ronan met his future wife, Catherine Feeney.

“I didn’t even know Catherine at the beginning of all this; I have proposed since and now we are planning the wedding,” he beamed.

Catherine was at Foyle Hospice to support her husband-to-be and said he has been bitten so hard by the running bug; she believes he will still run on the actual day of their wedding.

When asked if this was the case, a cheeky Ronan quipped: “At the minute that’s the plan!”

Catherine laughed: “The only thing I would ask is that he’s not later than me to the wedding!”

Ronan’s fiancée, Catherine, has been his biggest cheerleader throughout the mammoth challenge.

“It will stop whenever Ronan feels that he’s done all he wants to do, I’m not going to put a time or date on it,” she said.

“I remember when I first knew of the streak, it was something I really got on board with and I started going to the Park Runs with him to show a bit of support. He never had a set date in mind to stop, suddenly it was a year, then it was two years and now 1,000 days!”

However, Ronan is not quite finished just yet and has already almost completed a series of parkruns, working his way through the alphabet. Parkruns are free community running events that take place all over the world.

“There is a parkrun challenge where you can tour around and do A-Z in the alphabet except X, there’s nowhere starting with X where we can do it, but I have already done one in 24 hours in Poland in Zielona Góra,” said Ronan.

“The most of them I’ve run have been in Ireland and England and I only have two letters to go. I was even keeping it in mind when looking at a honeymoon!”

Ronan said he was delighted to complete this challenge to raise funds for Foyle Hospice. “Having lived close by Foyle Hospice for over 30 years, I thought I should take the chance to support it as much as possible.”

If you would like to show your support for Ronan’s amazing achievement by donating to Foyle Hospice, please visit www.1000days.run