A couple of months ago, our colleague Romina Constantinou decided to challenge herself and so embarked upon a personal journey with a purpose: to train and run a half-marathon, fundraising in support of BirdLife Cyprus, birds and nature, along the way.

During migration, birds face a lot of challenges and obstacles before they manage to get to their final destination. Romina’s journey had its own challenges: a minor ankle injury, a few bad weather days and a COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the postponement of the OPAP Limassol Marathon GSO 2020 race, where Romina was planning on racing, Romina stuck to her guns and decided to run the distance anyway, since running is an activity that can been done while practicing physical distancing. So, on 22 March, the scheduled day of the race -and before any lockdown was in place- Romina did what she pledged to do: she ran 21 kilometres for birds, alone and surrounded by nature, in an impressive 2 hours and 6 minutes.

In the span of these two months, Romina managed to raise 1500 euros for BirdLife Cyprus. As per her wish, the money will go towards keeping a close eye on our birds, that is in support of our bird-monitoring schemes, the backbone of our conservation actions. On behalf of Romina, we would like to send out a big thank you to everyone who made a donation in support of this effort.

“Thank you all for supporting me and the birds! says Romina. “In these uncertain times, we might often feel like we are struggling in our own personal marathon. But let us not forget, a marathon is just a race, and all races have a finish line. It is just a matter of pushing through!” our runner adds.

Stay home, stay safe. We will get through this.