Red Bull pushed the boat out in Dun Laoghaire yesterday when launching the third year of the Wings for Life World Run which will take place down the South Dublin and Wicklow coastline as well as in 34 global locations on May 8th.
The race is unique in that all the likely 100,000 participants start to run at exactly the same time around the world. After gaining a head start 34 catcher cars will set out and the object of the race is to run longer than any of the other racers. All proceeds made from the race go towards finding advanced treatments and a potential cure for spinal injuries.
Last year’s event was spoiled here as a visual feast by bad weather but the inaugural run around the Ring of Kerry was spectacular and produced images of Ireland that were beamed around the world.
It is hoped that this will be repeated again this year and there was no shortage of star appeal at the launch with Joe Canning and Ashling Thompson lining out from the GAA world, Eoghan McDermott and Roz Purcell providing a media slant and Felix Jones from Rugby as well as World Champion and Olympic Gold hopeful Michael Conlon also kitting out in the chill of January.
Puma are global partners of the event and will be producing a special technical event shirt for runners.
The registration site has a neat goal calculator which gives an indication of how fast you will need to run to stay ahead of the car, depending on how much distance you think you would cover. You’d need to be hitting a modest enough 50 minutes to stay in the race through 5KM, stepping up to 1 hour and 10 minutes to last through 10KM and nudging 3 hours and 8 minutes to be still going at the Marathon distance of 42KM.
Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Registration is now open at www.wingsforlifeworldrun.com
Image Credit: Inpho.ie / Morgan Treacy
