Taking a run on Shannon’s runway

A full field of 1,200 runners, joggers and walkers, will come to the starting line for this Friday night’s unique event at Shannon Airport.

The runway will be closed for more than three hours, from 10.45pm until 2am, for the 5km night-time run, which is in aid of the Samaritans. The event is expected to raise in excess of €15,000 for the designated airport charity.

Shannon operations director, Niall Maloney said if there were twice as many places available, they could easily have been filled.

“The attraction of running in Ireland’s first ever night-time runway event proved even greater than we anticipated, as we are fully subscribed for the event and there has been a rush over recent days of applicants that we have unfortunately had to turn down. Our capacity for the event is 1,200 and we could probably have done twice that amount, such has been the interest,” he said.

The run will commence at the terminal building, from where the participants, all of whom will be chip-timed, will embark on a triangular course that takes them out onto one of the airport taxiways to the main runway. They will proceed down the runway for just over 2,200 metres, before turning back towards the finish line, which is also near the terminal building, along a second taxi way.