By Ray O'Hanlon, Irish Echo, 11 February 2009

He didn't run out of road. He ran out of continents. Galway ultra distance runner Richard Donovan has become the first person to run seven marathons on seven continents in less than seven days. And his feat, by way of his feet, is helping the war and famine threatened people of the Darfur region of western Sudan.

In case anyone is thinking of breaking Donovan's mark it would be well to note the fact that he accomplished his runs in 5 days, 9 hours and 8 minutes. In that time he ran a total of 183 miles, but also flew tens of thousands of them.

Donovan finished his final marathon in Sydney, Australia late last week. Behind him he had notched up six 26.2 mile runs in Antarctica, Africa, Asia, Europe and both North and South America.

The precise locations for his runs leading up to the Sydney climax were Cape Town, Dubai, London, Toronto and Santiago.

The precise location in Antarctica was, well, somewhere in Antarctica.

Donovan's seven marathon odyssey was dedicated to drawing attention to Irish aid agency GOAL's work in Darfur.

"Richard has done something truly remarkable. Not only has he set a record that will not be easily beaten but he has also brought much needed attention to the on-going tragedy in Darfur. Everyone in GOAL thanks him for his efforts to raise awareness of this humanitarian catastrophe," said GOAL founder and CEO, John O'Shea.

Donovan's Antarctic run did in fact have a "prec-ice" location. It began at 2.50 a.m. on Saturday, January 31 in the Russian town of Nova, which is 4,200 kilometers south of Cape Town on the Antarctic mainland.

Completing this initial marathon in a time of 4.39.29 in temperatures of about -20 degrees Celsius, Donovan immediately flew to South Africa for run number two.

After balmier Cape Town it was Dubai by the following morning. At this juncture it was three marathons in two days. Despite the snow storm that shut down London last week, Donovan completed his fourth marathon there in the early hours of Monday morning.

By the wee hours of Tuesday, with help from a five hour time difference, Donovan completed the Toronto run in just over four hours. From there is was back to the southern hemisphere and Santiago in Chile.

With Santiago in the bag he flew the Pacific to Sydney, economy class, as was the case in all his flights.

"I want to run this series of marathons faster then anyone has done before and at the same time I hope to attract plenty attention to the tragedy of Darfur," Donovan said of his seven on seven, in less than seven, epic.

© The Irish Echo