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Mark with his People of the Year Award for 2012. Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland
Mark Pollock

The Run In The Dark race is back – and now it’s international

Now in its second year, the event boasts six official locations: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, London, Manchester and New York.

IRISH ADVENTURER MARK Pollock wants those who ran in the dark for him last year to do it again – on Wednesday 14 November 2012.

Whereas the official nighttime race was limited to the streets of Dublin, Cork and Belfast last year, this year’s incarnation boasts three additional – and international – locations: London, Manchester and New York.

Each location is open to both walkers and runners, with lengths of either five or 10 kilometres available at each, with the exception of New York (five kilometres only).

Pop-up running events are also set to take place in other locations around the world.

The aim of the run, which is now in its second year, is to help pay for Pollock’s continued rehabilitation using robotic legs, which he continues to trial in Ekso Bionics in Berkeley, California.

He remains the only person who is both blind and paralysed to trial them. At a talk in Trinity College earlier this summer, Pollock spoke of having to come to terms with becoming paralysed, having already been blind from the age of 22.

As I had moments of clarity, peppered with hallucinations from the morphine that I was on, I wondered to myself whether dying would be a better outcome than what was happening.

Having started his rehabilitation, however, Pollock now believes that some form of movement is possible.

In addition to helping to raise funds for Mark’s rehabilitation, participants can also raise money for other charitable organisations, including Wings For Life, Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind and the NCBI.

See more about the Run in the Dark and the Mark Pollock Trust here>

Read: Irish adventurer Mark Pollock hopes to defy ‘conventional wisdom’ and walk again >

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