Eddie Gallen and John O'Regan, two Irish international ultra runners, successfully completed the legendary 246km Spartathlon race in Greece on 25 September.
The Spartathlon, run from Athens to Sparta, must be completed within 36 hours by competitors. Strict cut-off times for reaching checkpoints are imposed. Furthermore, high temperatures in Greece make a difficult course all the more trying.
According to the race website, 192 of 351 starting participants were forced to drop out of this year's event. However, Eddie Gallen and John O'Regan moved steadily through the field to finish in times of 33:51:54 hrs and 34:13:37 hrs, respectively.
Eddie took 57th place while John finished in 67th position. In doing so, they became the first Irish runners to finish the race since 1998.
It was also a closely run contest in this part of the race field with an average of 1 runner finishing every 4 minutes from positon 27 through 67!
The men's race was won by Italy's Ivan Cudin while Emily Gelder of Great Britain took the female title.
Copyright 2009-2012 Richard Donovan / UltraRunning Ireland. All rights reserved.