An avid endurance runner from Portadown made a memory a mile at this year’s Dublin Marathon by helping her wheelchair bound father complete his first ever marathon experience.
No stranger to a challenge, 25-year-old Megan Hamill has run all form of endurance race, from standard marathons to ultramarathons; Ironman events to Mount Kilimanjaro hikes.
However, her eighth marathon – which followed just one weekend after her Amsterdam Marathon run – took place in Dublin on Sunday, October 27 and it undoubtedly became a run to remember.
Megan was joined for the entire 26.2 miles by her beloved father, Gerald.
Speaking to Armagh I, Megan explained how her father Gerald – who will have seen 14 years as a wheelchair user this Monday (November 14) – was left having to find a “new normal” after a workplace accident “changed everything”.
This, she says, was the reason for their run.
Said Megan: “It can be seen as barrier, being in a wheelchair, and the world is really not designed for it.
“So the idea was to just break that barrier and to show that anything is really possible. Sometimes you need a hand from someone but it can be done.”
Together, they completed the course at a walking pace, crossing the finish line in six hours and 55 minutes.
And, while she found this marathon no harder than any other, Megan says it was the people that kept them going.
Of the camaraderie and support she added: “There were other runners who asked to give a hand with the hills but once I have my mind set to something I’m locked in! The supporters too were just so kind.
“Runners who were probably hitting the ‘runner’s wall’ were coming up to us and patting us on the back and giving us a thumb’s up. It was such a buzz.”
And, she denies that Colin Farrell – who pushed his friend and Ireland’s longest survivor of epidermolysis bullosa (EB), Emma Fogarty across the finish line at Dublin Marathon – had anything to do with her perseverance!
She quipped: “Everyone was saying ‘Colin is running’ but I didn’t get to see him. But, if he wants to do a meet and greet…”
However, fun and enjoyable, it was a new experience for Megan, who has long found an internal ‘calmness’ in her hobby.
For the Dublin Marathon, she focused instead on Gerald and his enjoyment.
“It was completely different,” she said. “Usually when I’m running a marathon I think about myself and this is hurting or I need to take on this fuel or whatever but the whole time it was just like ‘get to the finish line’ and he [Gerald] was sitting there with a smile on his face.
“You don’t just focus on yourself, you focus on two people but he gave me hand up the hills too, so it was grand.
“It was his first marathon and that’s a huge deal, so he was my priority and he got a medal too for finishing.”
The race also afforded the pair an opportunity to raise £2,700 for Brain Tumour Research – a cause close to their hearts.
For now, it’s onto the next big challenge for Megan, who asserts that running the length of Ireland is well overdue!
