The Head Vet Nurse of the USPCA has concluded his year-long ’50 at 50′ challenge which raised vital funds for his organisation.
When Niall Martin turned 50 on January 7 last year, he decided there’d be no better way to celebrate that milestone than by raising money and awareness for a charity that he knows better than most.
Niall then set himself the daunting task of completing 50 running events – one for each of his years – to be completed within one year of his birthday.
He says he decided to undertake a challenge as he is, “privileged to work for an organisation that is so passionate and committed to the support of animal welfare and the relief of suffering”.
He started small with 5k park runs, before moving on to 10k runs with some cycling sprinkled in. He also pledged to do five big events – half-marathons – with the first being in Omagh on March 26.
The last of his big events took place on the last day of his 50th year – January 6 – at the Polar Night Half-Marathon in Tromso, Norway.
A JustGiving page set up by Niall has already surpassed £1,000, with donations still continuing to pour in.
Niall, who has worked with the USPCA for four years, says he thought his 50th birthday was the perfect opportunity to help support the USPCA’s work.
He said: “I started in January last year with two park runs and built on that. The first 10k I did was the Craic 10k in Belfast.
“Most of it was running but I also did a big cycle last March and a couple of other cycling events. I’d also never done a cross-country before, so I thought I’d give that a go and I did that last January.”
To keep the momentum going and to ensure he met the deadline, Niall was doing an event nearly every week. However, an unforeseen injury put him out of action for six weeks. Despite this, he was determined to keep going.
“I had a little bit of catch up then but had banked a few things at the weekend… But the pressure was on in July then for me to get caught up again.”
For Niall, his biggest event was the Polar Night Half-Marathon in Tromso, which proved to be a big challenge.
“It was always going to be something extra special because I was doing it on the 6th of January, which was the last day of my 50th year.”
Explained Niall: “It’s way up north up in the polar region where there’s only two hours of daylight… You start running at three in the afternoon but it’s actually pitch dark.
“This year it was probably -3 or -4, but because of the polar wind, it felt more like -10. It was freezing. I was running all layered up and 8k in a big snow storm happened. It was an absolute blizzard.”
Despite this, Niall says it was all worth it.
“It was different and you know it was amazing to actually get around it. No personal bests but at the same time it was just amazing.
“It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic year!”
He continued: “It was challenging enough but it was totally, totally worth it. I feel very privileged to work for the USPCA and I see first-hand the amazing work that we do here. It’s lovely to be a part of that and to just highlight it as well.”
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