Ciaran McCaffrey is within sight of completing a remarkable challenge. At Christmas the local runner set himself a target of running a 10K race in every county in Ireland, and with over three months still remaining he has competed in 29 of the 32 counties, with only Carlow, Cavan and Leitrim still on his list. In the process Ciaran has racked up his one hundredth distance race, and is already on the way to his next hundred.

It is a remarkable feat of dedication and endurance, with Ciaran regularly completing more than one distance race in a day. Earlier this month he completed race number 100 on home soil in Tempo, having already contested a similar race in Longford that morning. He was back in the car the next morning to take part in a race in Galbally on the Sunday, his third event of the weekend. Just two days later and he was off to Coleraine for yet another 10 kilometres.

To most people that sort of schedule seems daunting, but Ciaran takes it all in his stride. “If you geared up for it and have prepared yourself well in terms of food and drink you can get round it,” he said. “A lot of it is thanks to Paul O’Neill from Clones who pushed me to do it and set me a challenge. I wanted to do 100 races but he suggested doing one in each of the 32 counties, and I have 29 of them done and only three to go. I’m going to rattle on at it and see how many I can complete between December 26 last year and December 26 this year.” Ciaran’s running career started as a young teenager and it has become an addiction that he just can’t get enough of. “I don’t drink and I don’t smoke so that is my only vice,” he said. “I enjoy travelling to the events and seeing different parts of the country. I have been running from I was 12 or 13 years of age, but I never got anywhere, and I’m still not getting anywhere. I get through the miles but I never win. My best time this year is about 43 and a half minutes but I’m not setting out to win, I just want to complete them.” Ciaran’s first competitive event was the Fermanagh fun run from Enniskillen to Irvinestown back in the early 1980s, and although he has continued to compete at a variety of distances up to half marathons, he admits he has no desire to complete a marathon. “I have never done a marathon,” he said. “In a 10k you can really let yourself go for 45 minutes, but I don’t think I would like to be doing four of those back to back. It’s a long way!” Although Ciaran, who is raising money for the RNLI, has only three more races to complete his challenge, he has no intention of stopping there. “They are building a station House at Carrybridge and they have to raise the money themselves, so I will be doing as many as I can do for them,” he said. “I’m going to keep going, and maybe try to beat it next year.”