Joe Cleary at yesterday’s Hall of Fame ceremony
A Dundalk man who has run over 500 marathons was inducted into The Halton Hills Sports Museum Hall of Fame at a ceremony in the John Elliott Theatre in Georgetown, Canada last night.
75-year-old Joe Cleary, who is originally from St Alphonsus Villas, was one of six inductees into the hall of fame having completed 536 marathons despite having the medical condition COPD, which leaves him with about half his lung capacity.
One of the events Joe completed was a 1,000km event two years ago which took him 34 days to finish.
‘Irish Joe’ as he is known in Canada, is one of only two from the country to have surpassed the 500-race mark.
In the early 1980s, Cleary was an original member of the Georgetown Track Club, which later became the Georgetown Runners, in order to get a track built at the local high school.
Before then, he drove many local youths who aspired to earn scholarships to schools in the U.S. to track practices in Scarborough.
He also was one of the original race organizers of the popular annual Egg Nog Jog in December, which has raised approximately $200,000 for numerous community groups since its inception.
