A Ramsey man ran 10km every single day in 2022 to raise money for charity.
Paul Shanley didn’t miss a single day of running all year, often varying his routes around his home town.
‘I’ve enjoyed doing it,’ he said. ‘Obviously at times it was challenging, especially with getting up early in the morning and in the last couple of months with the weather, that was hard.
‘For my routes, I’d be up and down Ramsey prom and go around the park quite a bit.
‘I also did the Isle of Man half marathon around Ramsey in August and the Great Manx Run and I came first in that. That was probably the best one that I did.
‘I did a full marathon on October 21 so doing that was quite a big achievement for me because I did one a few years back and it nearly killed me so doing this was quite good.’
The 44-year-old said that the decision to take on the challenge was a natural progression after running every day in lockdown.
Paul added: ‘I just thought I’d do a step up. Luckily I didn’t get sick or injured during it, that was the big worry.
‘I was incredibly lucky as it would have been the big thing that would have stopped me.’
Asked if there were any particularly difficult days, he said: ‘There were a couple of days where I was travelling and had to get the boat at 7am so was up at 4.30am on one of the days just to fit it in before I had to get on the boat. That was horrible.
‘I went to a concert and then had to get up in the morning and run around Liverpool Docks as well.
‘Those were probably the toughest two days I’d say.’
On December 31, he did laps around the lake in Mooragh Park.
‘I quite enjoyed the solitude of it, just going out on my own for 40 to 50 minutes,’ he said. ‘I was happy to do the same thing for my last day, but my wife and children came to cheer me on with a couple of friends.
‘It wasn’t a big thing but it was just nice to see them there at the end.
‘It was a strange feeling to finish because I’d spent all year doing it and then that was it. It was nice to get it done and know that I’d managed to do it every day.’
Since completing the challenge, he still hasn’t taken a day off.
Paul said: ‘I probably should have done just to enjoy it!
‘I have run every day since but the motivation’s not quite the same. I haven’t been going as far but I have managed to get out every day.’
The challenge was set to mark a decade since his father, Peter Shanley, died.
‘I wanted to do something in his memory,’ Paul said.
‘It was 10 years last year since my dad passed away so I thought it would be nice to mark it.
‘[In 2021] I did 1,000km in 100 days so wanted to see if I could go one (265 days) better by running at least 10km every day in 2022.
‘I also thought, why not raise a bit of money for a good cause in my dad’s memory whilst I do it.’
The runner chose to raise money for the Isle of Man Foodbank, which provides food crisis support to help families and individuals in need, because of rising demand for the service due to the cost of living.
He managed to raise a total of £2,040 for the charity.
Paul said: ‘It was hard choosing a charity as there are so many good causes out there.
‘I decided on the food bank though as times are hard and people need it.
‘We were never rich growing up but my mum and dad worked hard to make sure we never went hungry.
‘Unfortunately, people now can work full time and still struggle to feed their families. With the cost of living crisis it’s going to get harder for everyone.
‘I know my dad would agree this is wrong and so in memory of him I hope to raise a bit of money to help the Foodbank help families and anyone else who needs them.’
When Paul started his challenge last year, Isle of Man Foodbank thanked him for his efforts and said the funds would help the charity ‘tremendously’.
He tracked his progress through fitness app Strava, which is used by athletes to track their progress.
It showed where he had run each day and how long it took him.
Paul’s fundraising page is still open for donations.
You can find it on JustGiving under ‘Paul’s 10k run every day in 2022’.