Children’s Cancer charity boosted by firefighters’ half marathon effort

Joanne Scahill, a retained firefighter at Crescent Link Station in the Waterside, together with Retained Crew Commander Brendan O’Brien, her nephew, Andrew Figini and her husband, Jonathan Scahill, ran the Omagh Half Marathon on March 31 - a punishing 13.1 miles, which they completed in a very respectable two hours.

They chose to support the Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children, which was the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue’s ‘999 Charity Parthership’ charity for 2008, and campaigned for sponsorship across the fire stations in the north west as well as taking donations from family and friends.

The intrepid four trained hard for eight weeks for the event, but for Andrew it was a novel experience.

“Andrew had never run in a half marathon before, so he started training with myself and Brendan. We have done a couple of half marathons before, and Brendan’s first was the Waterside Marathon here in the city last year, but Jonathan and I have done quite a lot of them, so we brought Andrew out with us and got training for a full eight weeks to leave us fit for the Omagh half marathon,” she said.

“I think Andrew must have enjoyed it because he and Jonathan intend to run Cookstown Half Marathon on July 29,” she said, adding: “We are delighted that we have been able to help the Northern Ireland Children’s Cancer Fund and want to thank all the NIFRS personnel who supported us as well as our family and friends for their donations and encouragement.”