A mother of three who has claimed the Guinness World Record for the fastest female crossing of Ireland on foot has said it was “a family record”.
Sophie Power (43), from Surrey, ran from Malin Head to Mizen Head in three days, 12 hours and eight minutes in May 2024.
The previous record was set in 2012 by Mimi Anderson, with Ms Power having to run just under 170km every day.
Ms Power has three children – Donnacha (10), Cormac (7) and Saoirse (7) – with her husband John, who is from Co Cork. The latest Guinness World Records holders are being unveiled on Thursday.
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“I only found out about an hour ago that it will be in the book. My kids are going to be so excited, it’s going to be in their library. They’ll love it,” she said on Wednesday.
“The certificate is on the wall but they’ll be so excited to see it in the book. It was such a special thing for them. They were so heavily involved. The boys were in the camper van. My daughter was down in Cork with her granny and grandad. I was thinking about running towards her and she intercepted me halfway as we got into Cork, which was amazing.
“They see it as their record as well and I see it very much as theirs as well. It was a family record. My whole Irish family got behind it and supported it. It’s not really my record.”
Ms Power took up ultra marathon running in her mid-20s and set up SheRACES, an organisation to encourage women of all ages and abilities to run. In 2018, a photograph of Ms Power breastfeeding her then three-month-old son during a 106-mile race went viral.
There had been no option for her to defer her place until she was fit to compete and it highlighted what she saw as a big issue facing women and mothers.
'I had no sleep for the first 24 hours' - a mother's record breaking run from Malin to Mizen head
Last June, Sophie Power has just done something extraordinary – she ran 563km from Malin Head to Mizen Head in record time.It took her a record-breaking three days, 12 hours and eight minutes and she beat the existing record by an astonishing three hours. And it’s not even her most gruelling run – not by long way.The 41 year-old mother to Donnacha, Cormac and Saoirse is an ultra runner and the morning after she finished running the length of Ireland she posted on social media: “My body had about 2 hrs sleep over 3 nights so is still in shock. Finally in a proper bed I still woke up last night every 30 minutes thinking it was time to go running again.”She tells In the News how on the first two days she ran in driving rain, on the last day, heading into Cork she got heatstroke. She injured her knee less than half-way through but she kept running and outside Longford she started hallucinating.An unsporty child she took up running at 26 and astonishingly her first race was the infamous Marathon des Sables, a seven-day, 250km run in the Sahara. She has run while pregnant and a photo of her breastfeeding mid-race went viral. She founded SheRaces, an organisation to encourage women of all ages and abilities to run.This episode was originally broadcast in June 2024. Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
“That’s the image that completely changed my life, it went viral around the entire world,” she said. “Before that image, I was CEO of a tech company and it was just a sliding doors moment to dedicate my life to getting more women and girls in sport and pivoting into working in sport.”
Ms Power said she “felt destroyed” after completing the Malin to Mizen Head run.
“There was a really long recovery. You see lots of people doing these running challenges of a number of marathons over so many days but they’re sleeping and recovering. I had two hours and 17 minutes of sleep in three nights because that’s what it took to break the record. It was several months before I properly felt back to normal to get training again.”
