A grandfather-granddaughter duo from Letterkenny are completing half marathons together, with the most recent coming in England yesterday.
Éimear McGlynn and her grandfather Peter McGlynn completed the MoRunning half marathon in Birmingham yesterday in aid of the Movember fundraiser.
Peter is well known in Donegal for his marathon running. The 73-year-old lives in Rockhill and has completed an astonishing 252 marathons in his lifetime, but is set to ease off on them now.
A former psychiatric nurse, Peter flew over to Birmingham to complete the half marathon with his granddaughter, who he has helped in catching the distance running bug, as the pair have completed over 50 Letterkenny parkruns together.
Éimear is a fully qualified Speech and Language Therapist, graduating from Birmingham University, and is now working on the stroke ward of Sandwell General Hospital.
Éimear, who is from Beechwood Road in Letterkenny, is looking towards completing a full marathon herself, having completed 10 half marathons and yesterday’s was her first in England.
“I hope to complete a full marathon with grandad in the new year,” Éimear said.
“We do the same races but we’re not always together as grandad normally does full marathons.
“He’s brilliant for motivation so it’s always nice to do them together when we get the chance. His experience means he has plenty of advice for novice marathon participants.”
The MoRunning half marathon took place in Sutton Coldfield Park yesterday and MoRunning Birmingham has raised over £11,700 for the Movember fundraiser so far.
Movember is an annual event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s suicide.
MoRunning uses Movember to inspire as many people as possible to get outdoors, to run, to improve health and fitness and in doing so raise as much awareness as possible for their charity partner Movember and the huge importance on the work they do.