A Mayo hurler has raised over €20,000 for charity by running a marathon in his back garden while soloing a sliotar.
Cathal Freeman, like everyone across the country, has been staying at home to help in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the medical student at the University of Limerick got a brainwave when Twitter distracted him from his studies.
He told Mayo News: “I got the idea from a guy over in England, James Campbell is his name, and thought, ‘how bad could this be?’ and without really thinking about it I threw in the hurl and sliotar.
“But after I thought about that, I reckon it’s going to get very dizzy!”
The Tooreen clubman and former Mayo footballer said on Twitter that he would undertake the challenge if getting more than 2,000 retweets.
Word quickly spread and soon the 29-year-old had to prepare to do a 30 metre loop in his back garden around 1400 times!
Support flooded in and his run is being streamed live on Facebook with many of his friends, his family and GAA figures providing commentary.
Cathal started the run at 11.30am and is still going around the same patch of turf. He looks set to finish just before darkness descends on his back garden close to the University of Limerick.
Freeman, who set up a GoFundMe page for his marathon efforts, has incredibly already raised over €20,000 for the Irish Cancer Society and the HSE.
“Unfortunately the Irish Cancer Society missed out on their Daffodil Day towards the end of March,” he said. “That is something that affects myself and pretty much everyone else, because the Irish Cancer Society does amazing work.
“The second part of the fundraising drive is to raise money for the HSE to provide PPE (personal protective equipment) for the huge amount of healthcare workers who are being affected by the coronavirus while doing amazing work.”
