'I had no sleep for the first 24 hours' - a mother's record breaking run from Malin to Mizen head

In The News

Last June, Sophie Power has just done something extraordinary – she ran 563km from Malin Head to Mizen Head in record time.

It took her a record-breaking three days, 12 hours and eight minutes and she beat the existing record by an astonishing three hours. And it’s not even her most gruelling run – not by long way.

The 41 year-old mother to Donnacha, Cormac and Saoirse is an ultra runner and the morning after she finished running the length of Ireland she posted on social media: “My body had about 2 hrs sleep over 3 nights so is still in shock. Finally in a proper bed I still woke up last night every 30 minutes thinking it was time to go running again.”

She tells In the News how on the first two days she ran in driving rain, on the last day, heading into Cork she got heatstroke. She injured her knee less than half-way through but she kept running and outside Longford she started hallucinating.

An unsporty child she took up running at 26 and astonishingly her first race was the infamous Marathon des Sables, a seven-day, 250km run in the Sahara. She has run while pregnant and a photo of her breastfeeding mid-race went viral. She founded SheRaces, an organisation to encourage women of all ages and abilities to run.

This episode was originally broadcast in June 2024.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

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