Repost: Forty miles a day, every day, for three straight months. Why does Richard Donovan choose this life?

Call of the wild: Richard Donovan midway through a run in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the Galway native organises the Volcano Marathon.

Back in April, we published an interview Cathal Dennehy did with Galway man Richard Donovan, who was running across America carrying a pendant containing the ashes of a late friend, Alvin Matthews, which he was to deliver to Matthews’ mother in California.

On Sunday, he completed his journey when arriving at Santa Monica pier. Here we republish that interview from April, in which Richard discusses what drove him to do it and his life up to now.