AN Enniskillen paramedic who wanted to raise money for Cancer Research has surpassed all personal goals and fundraising targets by running a staggering 169 miles in a month.
Stuart Rainey was prompted to do something for cancer sufferers after his grandfather was diagnosed with mesothelioma. Reading the Cancer Research UK website he was also dismayed to see how many young people are suffering from the disease and by the statistics that one in two people will receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.
Stuart, who clearly has a vocation to help others, decided to take up the Cancer Research fundraising challenge to run 56 miles – your way – during the month of February.
On Sunday, Stuart completed his challenge with a final 27-mile run from Enniskillen to Augher, when he would’ve clocked up a massive 165 miles. He didn’t stop there, though. Stuart’s brother, Phillip, teased him that he would join him for a run so Stuart told him that if he saw Phillip waiting in Augher with a pair of running shorts on that the two of them would run another four miles to Ballygawley.
The 25-year-old had found the target he had set himself to run three and a half miles a day “too comfortable” and thought that since the biggest challenge a runner could set himself is a 26 and a half mile marathon that he would try that. With no previous running training and squeezing 5k runs in to between his shifts as a paramedic in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, somehow the Enniskillen man surpassed the Cancer Research challenge easily.
Before Sunday’s epic run, Stuart had raised £1,500 through his Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/fundraising/stuart-rainey. He completed the 27-mile run to Augher in three hours and 38 minutes and he and Phillip made it to Ballygawley in four hours 27 minutes.
“I can’t believe it,” an exhilarated Stuart said, “Delighted with what I’ve done for a great cause.”
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