Russell is Last One Standing following 262.5 mile event
Keith Russell continues to push the limits of his endurance as he took part and won the grueling Last One Standing in Florida Manor Down on Tuesday morning.
Navan man Russell has been running marathons and endurance races for several years and has raised thousands of Euros for charity, but this weekend's event in Down was one of his toughest challenges yet and he completed it in aid of five year old Nahyan Javid from Navan who was diagnosed with metastatic Neuroblastoma, a very rare and aggressive form of cancer in children.
The Last One Standing event started at 12 noon on Saturday where runners had one hour to complete the first 4.2 mile loop and be at the start line ready to go again at 1pm.
When they completed their second 4.2 mile loop they had to be ready to go again at 2pm and that continued every hour, on the hour, until Russell was the last man still standing on Tuesday morning.
Any runner who did not finish inside the one hour time limit and wasn't at the start ready to go again on the hour mark was disqualified.
All runners with the exception of Russell were deemed as an official DNF (did not finish), but still received a medal to prove they took part.
Russell completed 63 loops and ran 262.5 miles to smash the Northern Ireland and Irish distance records in a phenomenal display.
Runners who were still in the race at the 24 hour mark completed 100.8 mile and received an Atlas Running 100 mile medal.
Though the course was not flat, it was easily completed inside the one hour time limit, but the effort and stamina to finish every loop inside an hour and be ready to go again was enormous - pacing was everything.
The race was not about being the fastest. There were two food and drinks tables, one at the start and finish area and one at the two-mile marker and there was also a qualified medical team on site to deal with medical emergencies for the duration of the event.
The Last One Standing event was part of Northern Ireland's Backyard Golden Ticket series and Russell's victory earned him a place in the Bigs Backyard Last One Standing World final in Tennessee in October.
Russell ran the Dublin City Marathon in 2017 while pushing his daughter Alanna in a special running chair and raised €60,000 for Rehab's The Meadow's Children's Respite Centre in Navan.
Sadly Alanna passed away in December that year at just eight years old and her Dad Keith received the Lord Mayor's Medal at the 2018 Marathon in recognition of Alanna's bravery.
Keith continues to take on endurance challenges to raise money for charity. In 2019 he ran the Dublin to Belfast Ultra marathon and last year he completed five marathons in one day in aid of Claremont Stadium's track development.
Anyone wishing to donate to the GoFundMe page for Nayhan can do so my clicking here.