With 600 miles behind them and more than 14,000 miles to go, runners on a three-month, round-the-world relay aimed at raising awareness about safe drinking water initiatives in developing regions stopped in Dublin yesterday for a baton exchange in St Patrick's Cathedral garden.
Twenty runners from 13 countries are participating in the Blue Planet Run, which began at the United Nations in New York on June 1st and will cross 16 countries before ending back in New York in September.
The runners arrived in Ireland on Monday and ran overnight through Limerick and other towns before reaching Dublin.
The run is a project of the California-based Blue Planet Foundation, which funds 135 clean water programmes in developing countries.
The runners range in age from 23 to 60 and were selected from nearly 400 applicants. Some of the team, including Paul Rogan, a gardener and sports coaching student from Scotland, knew little about the safe water issue before the run, but now feels strongly about educating others.
"I'm embarrassed to say I didn't realise that 1.2 billion people don't have safe drinking water," Mr Rogan said. "I thought this would be a fantastic challenge."
Jin Zidell, the foundation's founder, said the large-scale run was designed to draw attention to an equally large problem.
"Two-hundred-and-forty children die every hour of every day from dehydration and diarrhoea because they don't have access to clean water and tens of millions of young children don't go to school because they are fetching water all day," he said.
"But it is a solvable issue, easily within our technological and financial grasp."
Mr Zidell said his group is working to gain support to provide safe drinking water for at least 200 million people in the next 20 years.
He hopes this run - and others he has planned for 2009 and 2011 - will prompt individuals, groups and governments to donate.
"These runners are carrying a message so important they are carrying it hand-to-hand, on foot, around the world," he said.
After their stop in Dublin, the runners planned to continue on to the UK by ferry. The team will then move to continental Europe and on through Mongolia, China and Japan before returning to North America.
A planned 2009 run will cross the southern hemisphere.
