Charities the €600,000 winner in mini-marathon

A RECORD 3,145 participants took part in yesterday’s Irish Examiner Limerick Women’s Mini-Marathon.

The race was won by former Olympic athlete Rosemary Ryan from the Bilboa club in Co Limerick. She was followed home by Niamh O’Sullivan from the Riocht club in Castleisland and Limerick’s Orla Drumm who runs for University College Cork.

However, the big winners yesterday were the 130 charities who will benefit from over €600,000 raised by the runners.

Paddy O’Connor of the Limerick Athletic Club, which organised the event, said it was great success with people travelling hundreds of miles to take part. “This is the eighth mini marathon and when we started we had about 400 participants. Some of the women who took part travelled from as far away as Mayo,” he said.

Terry Daly from Pennywell in Limerick was one of the more senior entrants.

“I was 72 last week and I am taking part with friends and we are all members of the Limerick Walking Club,” the sprightly great grandmother said.

She even managed to stick to her Sunday cooking routine. “I put on a pot of corned beef and cabbage before I left,” she said.

One of the biggest groups of runners took part to raise money for CARI, which cares for sexually abused children.

“We have more than 350 women running for CARI and they will raise about e20,000 for the organisation,” CARI development executive in Limerick Anne Byrnes, said.

The money will help pay for the new centre they plan to open in Limerick to replace the existing one at Garryowen.

“We bought a house at Ennis Road for €890,000 and it will cost another e1 million to renovate it to suit our needs. We managed to buy the building with the help of €500,000 we got from the JP McManus golf pro am last year,” Ms Byrnes said.

Another group of runners represented women who have lost sons and daughters in tragic circumstances. They raised funds for the newly formed Lost Future organisation which holds weekly meetings for bereaved families.

Mary Fitzpatrick’s son Mike died after a brutal assault seven years ago when he was 19.

“We are all running for Lost Future today. It is an organisation there for us to support each other. We understand the tragedy of such loss We have a unique insight into what it does to individuals and families and we share this insight with each other,” Ms Fitzpatrick from Kincora Park, Southill said. “You have to experience the loss of a child to know how it feels.”

Catherine Lougheed, of the Irish Examiner marketing department, praised all the women who took part and the volunteers who helped make the event such a success.