“Loads of people from trail-running groups that I know have reached out to me, and they’re going to do one or two of the hill repeats. They’ve put steps in along the left-hand side so it’s great because runners can stay on one side and walkers can stay on the other. “A lot of work has been put into Croagh Patrick and they’ve put steps all the way up to the really hard bit at the top. Get Murray Kinsella's match analysis and Garry Doyle's updates from New Zealand exclusive to members A few people from the ultra running community have already signed up to run some of the sections with him. The 24-hour element of the challenge is just for Wynne but he welcomes anyone to join him throughout the run. On 11 June, he’ll be running along the same trail as the many people who climb Croagh Patrick on foot, but with enough space for him to get up and down freely. I’m up and down three times in three hours every time I go there. “That’s my mountain and I’m there every couple of weeks. “She’ll say, ‘it’s seven Croagh Patricks,’” Wynne says, quoting his wife’s way of explaining it all to others. Croagh Patrick is also a regular stomping ground for Wynne, and when he’s away doing other ultra races, his wife uses the Mayo Reek as a reference point while talking to friends about his sport. His wife is a native of Mayo, and comes from Westport. Wynne had a few reasons to choose Croagh Patrick for this fundraising run. It’s something like 22,679 metres, so if I go up and down Croagh Patrick 15 times, I get 22,920 metres.” “I’d also like to take on the world record,” he says, “which was broken by a guy over in England and he holds the record for the most vertical metres ascended and descended on foot in 24 hours. 11 June is fast approaching and he has a big job on his hands. On the day we speak, Wynne is working on a roof and as soon as it’s quitting time, he will be swapping his building site clothes for running attire, and clocking up 20km. People often ask me if I take a recovery and it’s kind of hard to take a recovery day when you work on a building site.” “On average, I’d train six days out of the seven a week. “Just something about running up mountains and being outside for hours and hours. I ventured into the mountains and hills and found that I enjoyed that so much more. “I knew that I wasn’t too bad at this,” he adds, “and that I’d keep it going. Starting from a position of knowing very little about the sport, Wynne quickly flourished as an extreme distance runner. The following year, he came back and broke the course record while also chopping 23 minutes off his own time. The distance was 50km and Wynne came second in a time of 4 hours and 5 minutes. Imagine if we actually trained for this kind of thing?”įrom there, he entered his first official ultra race in Portumna in 2017. “We knew we did really well but what I took from that was that I really loved that we were running for 12 hours, and we were able to run for 12 hours. “It started at night time and went all the way through the night,” Wynne remembers. By chance, he entered a 12-hour race with his brother in England and finished in “10th or 11th” out of 3,500 entrants. Wynne first became drawn to ultra running after finishing up with football in his 30s. And these are really fit men working in the construction industry. “I live in a small town and I play football for Leitrim Gaels,” Wynne tells The42 while discussing his inspiration for the Croagh Patrick project, ”and in our club two people have been struck down with that illness. Currently, there is no cure for the disease. MND is a progressive neurological condition that attacks the motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord. His colossal running effort is all in aid of Motor Neuron Disease to honour a close friend of his who is living with the dreadful condition, and to commemorate the memory of another Drumshambo native who has passed away. But regardless of the number of reps, Ricki Wynne from Drumshambo will continue his uninterrupted running until the time is up. The ultimate aim is to complete 15 round trips and break the world record of 12 runs in 24 hours. Ricki Wynne is training six days a week to prepare for his Croagh Patrick challenge.
And he won’t stop ascending and descending until 24 hours have passed. ON 11 JUNE, a construction worker from Leitrim will begin running up and down Croagh Patrick.
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