A true man of endurance gives us something to cheer about in troubled time

WE need to accentuate the positives at the moment. We feel let down by our banks and our political system combined, but we still have amazing people in our country.

One of whom is Corkman and fantastic endurance athlete, Dave O’Brien. He came home to Cork last week of November, having completed one of the most gruelling tests of human endurance in the world, the 200k run/race across Antarctica in -20 degrees. And to qualify, he had to run two out of three previous races — China’s Gobi March, Chile’s Atacama Crossing or Egypt’s Sahara Race. He did all three of about 250k distance each.

It is collectively called Racing the Planet series and the distances are enormous. He is the first Irishman and Corkman to do so in and only the third person on the planet to do it and it has to be done in one year. He once said, he would keep on running in a race, to the point he would only stop, if his internal organs were at risk of packing it in.