San Francisco-based Irish DJ and radio producer Greg McQuaid will be back home this month to run in the Dublin marathon. It'll be one of 52 he'll complete this year.
That's one a week. For an entire year.
Crazy? Of course he is. But there's method in his madness as the 47-year-old is raising funds for Breathe California, a non-profit, clean air and anti-smoking advocacy group in his adopted city.
"I'm currently 39 marathons in to my quest to run 52 marathons in 52 weeks, and I promote it on social media using the tag #52marathons52weeks," he told RTÉ Entertainment.
"When you put it out there on social media, you are kind of stuck doing it.
"I'm on the board of Breathe California, a clean air and lung health advocacy group. This is the 10th anniversary of me quitting smoking and we wanted to do something that caused a splash."
McQuaid swapped the smokes for running and before this year he'd racked up around 30 marathons. "I was really a better cyclist, but my wife got sick of broken bones," he admits before getting back on-message.
"Even clean air has become political," he insists. "The Paris Climate Accord is under threat, the people running the EPA [Envoronmental Protection Agency] don’t care particularly about the clean air . . .
"But the wonky side of climate change and clean air takes a back seat to my narrative of not smoking and giving up smoking."
The Dublin Marathon takes place on October 29.
