MANUS McShane has never minded running but decided this year he might as well try and help people out when he’s doing it.
The former Bellaghy defender’s brother-in-law Brendan Devlin was diagnosed with a brain tumour last August and sadly passed away on April 28 this year.
Manus had also lost good friend Damian Brown to a tumour last year and his sons play football for the club alongside sons of the late Siobhan McErlain’s, who also passed away last month.
Siobhan was a native of Dublin but had become a much-loved figure in the Bellaghy community since moving up with her husband Martin.
It’s all felt very close to home for Manus McShane, who decided after Damian’s death and Brendan’s diagnosis that he would set about raising some funds for Brainwaves NI.
Brainwaves is volunteer-led and is Northern Ireland’s only brain tumour charity, providing support for patients and their families as well as funding vital research.
Their website tells you that more children and adults under 40 die of a brain tumour than any other cancer, yet the national spend on research is around two per cent.
When he was playing mostly at corner-back for Bellaghy through their championship-winning days in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, McShane always tried to do an extra bit of running.
He kept it up a night or two every week after retiring but this year decided to go all out and challenge himself to run 6km (3.7 miles) every single day for an entire year.
A bricklayer by trade, Manus says it took his body four months to adjust to the ups and downs.
“Days my legs were good and days my legs were bad, until my body hardened to it. You just have to get on. It was a challenge for me.
“It was easier to do it the dark evenings than in the summer, trying to fit things around it, running to football here, there and everywhere. It loosens ye out a wee bit,” he laughs, standing on-site with a trowel in his hand.
Manus will have run the equivalent of a marathon every week for 52 weeks by the time he’s finished.
He’s only a few days’ running shy of meeting the overall target of 2,185km but will keep going until New Year’s Eve, when the family will all gather with his sister Mary, Brendan’s wife, at their home in Killeeshil and do the final run together.
They’ll also run an event at Bellaghy GAC – the grounds named after Damian Brown’s father, Sean – on the morning of Saturday 17 December, where adults can run 6km together and the kids get to meet Santa and do a few laps themselves.
Over £9,000 has already been raised for Brainwaves NI as a result and anyone wishing to donate can do so at https://www.gofundme.com/f/4kyyn?
