Eight friends are preparing to push themselves to the limit this weekend as they set their sights on running an incredible 72kms for two very worthwhile causes.
And it’s all part of a year-long fundraising drive hatched by motorsport enthusiasts Jordan McCann and John Christie and aptly named ‘Track to Track’.
Jordan, from Loughgall, and John, from Lower Ballinderry, had been preparing to run the Newry half marathon in June last year when they decided it would be great to turn the miles into money to help others.
“We just said, ‘wouldn’t it be great to do something for charity?’,” Jordan told Armagh I. “We race here at two tracks in Northern Ireland, one of them being Tullyroan Oval here in County Armagh, and the other one being Aghadowey, in County Derry.
“We thought, why don’t we keep it motorsport related and run from one track to the other, so that’s where the name came about, Track to Track.”
While the run this Saturday is indeed from one track to the other, the whole year-long fundraising initiative has included many other endeavours and more to come, with a huge amount already amassed.
And proceeds from their efforts will be split equally between Air Ambulance NI and Evora Hospice.
“The two charities that we have chosen are actually the charities that our race promoter, Davy McCall, of DMC Race Promotions, has chosen. He has always supported the Air Ambulance. It’s a great charity and it’s a service that we can all use, although hopefully none of us will ever need it,” said Jordan.
“The other charity is Evora Hospice, formerly known as the Southern Area Hospice. Our race promoter’s wife’s sister passed away with cancer last year. She spent her last days with Evora, so that was kind of a personal one, and we decided, right, we’ll go with those two charities and split it between them.
“It quickly evolved into a full year of fundraising, but this is actually our first major event.
“ There’s eight runners that we have assembled and the whole team’s already done numerous half marathons around the world, as well as Belfast full marathon and Cork full marathon.”
The eight taking part this weekend are Jordan and John, alongside Callum Doak, Dean McCrory, Ryan McCrory, Nicola McCrory, Ian Riordan and Ethan Doull.
All have been preparing and focusing on the task at hand and will be hoping for the scorching weather to break as they aim to see it through.
“We all hope to run the full distance,” explained Jordan. “We start at 4.30am this Saturday at Tullyroan Oval and we’re hoping to finish in Aghadowey at around 4pm.
“ I suppose you could class us all as novice runners in a sense. There is no real way to train right for it. It’s that long. The main thing is getting the sleep right, the eating right, your breaks right. It’s all about strategy, more so than training.
“ Obviously, we all have been training, but how do you train for a 72km run? It is quite difficult. It’s just months of miles, basically, and a lot of time put into it and a lot of injuries suffered. There isn’t really a right or wrong way to train.”
The year-long fundraising – which kicked off early in January – has required much help and effort. John’s wife, Natalie, has been instrumental thought it all, as has another friend, Siobhan Martin, who has done a lot of work on social media, designing the logo and T-shirts.
A GoFundMe page for this weekend’s run has been set up and currently over £5,000 has been raised, with much more expected with future diary dates to feed into the grand total.
“After Saturday’s run is over, we have our very own 5k and 10k race in Craigavon Lakes called Legend of the Lakes on Sunday, August 9,” added Jordan. “We have over 400 entries there already and still climbing daily.
“Our final fundraising event of the year, just to wrap the whole thing up as a charity, is a night in the Seagoe Hotel in Portadown on November 21, starting at 7pm.. We’ve already got quite a few major sponsors on board for that and we’re hoping for about 400 people at it.”
More information on the latter and tickets will be available in the not-too-distant future.
But for now, Jordan, John and Co are delighted with all of the support shown.
“In the last month or two, it’s really grown arms and legs. We have around 30 sponsors and overall we’ve over £22,000 raised and it’s climbing,” said Jordan. “We have over 1,000 followers on our dedicated Facebook page.
“As a whole, it’s been gratefully received by everybody in the Oval racing community and beyond. I’ve had quite a lot of messages this week alone wishing us all the best so the response has been good.”
With the final countdown now on to Saturday, the eight runners know that it will be tough going and they will have to pull something special out of the bag to go the distance.
But the knowledge of what they are running for and why they are doing it will help them to keep putting one foot firmly in front of the other.
It seems an obvious question and the reply is almost immediate…
So what are they looking forward to at the finishing line come Saturday afternoon?
“A pint!” Jordan laughs. “We are really looking forward to a pint!
“We are running to Aghadowey and they’ve a major speed weekend on this weekend. There’s three British championships with drivers from all over the UK and Ireland coming to race, so we are looking at a bumper crowd there.
“I think we are sure to get quite a loud welcome.”
If you would like to donate to Track to Track you can do so here >>>>
And if you are interested in taking part in August’s Legend of the Lakes, full details and how to apply can be found here >>>
