"Run in The Dark, for Mark" 2012

Mark Pollock is well-known in Ireland and when I heard his story I was absolutely blown away. He is a remarkable human being. Our friend Graham, who was college buddies with Mark, told us about the "Run in the Dark" and there was no question we would participate. And so, on Wednesday night, Wayne and I ran our first 10K race side by side, along with 10 group members from the Dun Laoghaire Pier Runners. (Sidenote: I was delighted today when I saw one of our group members refer to us as "the DPRs"....I started a group that now has an acronym! Yes!) 

 

Back to Mark. Here's an excerpt from the Mark Pollock Trust website:

"As part of regaining his identity after losing his sight [at age 22] he chose to take on spectacular challenges. He has survived the sub-zero temperatures of Antarctica as he raced to the South Pole over 43 days. He suffered the scorching heat of the Gobi Desert, completing six marathons in one week in “The Race of No Return”. He has competed in races on the frozen Arctic Ocean at the North Pole, through the desert lowlands of the Syrian African Rift Valley to the Dead Sea and at altitude at Everest base camp. He also has two Commonwealth Games medals for rowing under his belt.
In mid-2010, Mark’s business was thriving with a full calendar of motivational speaking events ahead. He was in the process of writing his second book and he was due to be married.

On the night of the 2^nd of July 2010 everything changed. He fell from a second story window fracturing his skull, some ribs and breaking his back in a number of places. Mark was taken to intensive care where injuries such as bleeds on his brain and a suspected torn aorta one by one healed becoming less and less significant beside the fact that Mark could not feel or move anything below his belly button. Mark’s bones eventually healed but medicine can do nothing to repair a damaged spinal cord..."(from http://markpollocktrust.org/marks-story)
Keep in mind, ALL of those accomplishments, were achieved after he lost his sight. Those are feats that would leave any human being proud for a lifetime, and he did each one of them without sight.

And to read about the incredible technology that has allowed Mark to walk with robotic legs, here is his blog post:

http://www.markpollock.com/blog/blog.asp 

There's an amazing video of him trying them out for the first time, in a lab in Berkeley, California, January 2012.

 

You can imagine, then, how honored we were to join 5,000 (thousand!) other people at 7:30 pm, in Dublin, to run in honor of this man. This is the 2nd year of the run and not only did the entry numbers increase by more than 4,000 people (just in Dublin), it also simultaneously happened in Belfast, London, New York City and Cork. And last year, they even had people run "pop up" 'Run in the Dark' races in Paris, Brussels, San Francisco, Neuchatel, Toronto, Dallas, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Sydney. (from Runinthedark.org)

 

I was so honored to meet Mark after the race and so impressed with his spirit. You immediately feel how outgoing and seriously funny this man is. He is a force. To encounter a person this strong, with this type of drive, to not just "keep going", but to absolutely push the limits of human capacity, is shocking, foreign and so beautiful.