Jordan Adam's 32 County Marathon Mission

There was a moment during the London Marathon when Jordan Adams passed through the crowds with a fridge strapped to his back, and people stared.

It looked ridiculous. It was meant to.

A 25kg appliance strapped to a runner’s shoulders is in no way subtle. It’s suppose to invite questions. It slows you down. It definitely makes you stand out in a field of 50 thousand participants who are already pushing themselves to the edge. But this was precisely the point. And Why? Because what Adams is trying to explain cannot be seen.

Frontotemporal dementia does not arrive all at once. It creeps in. It strips away personality, memory, identity. And in Adams’ case, it is not a distant possibility. It is a near certainty.

An Inevitable Diagnosis

And at age 30, he knows what is coming.

Jordan is one half of a pair known as the FTD Brothers. He and his younger brother Cian both carry a gene that makes developing frontotemporal dementia almost inevitable sometime in their 40s. They also have a sister who does not carry the gene, a reminder of how unevenly this condition can fall within the same family.

They are already very familiar what that looks like. Their mother, Geraldine, was diagnosed in her late 40s and passed away at 52, after years of decline that forced her children into the role of carers at a young age.

In total, more than a dozen relatives have been lost to the same condition. For most people, that kind of diagnosis would narrow life. However for Jordan, it has had the opposite effect.

Making An Invisible Burden Visible

Far from being a sentence, Jordan sees it as a kind of clarity. An impetus to act while he still can.

The fridge was never about endurance on its own. It was a symbol for Jordan.

He has spoken about the weight people carry when dealing with illness, grief, or fear, this sense of something heavy that no one else can see.

So he decided to make that make it unavoidably visible.

Running 26.2 miles with that burden turned a private reality into a public display. People stopped, stared, laughed, asked questions. And more importantly, they listened.

That ability to cut through noise matters. Because dementia, particularly early-onset forms like FTD, often exists in the background of public conversation, acknowledged but rarely understood.

Jordan wants to bring it to the fore.

From London To The 32 Counties 

If London was the curtain raiser, Ireland is the main act. Well minus the fridge. 

Within hours of finishing the marathon, Jordan was on his way to Belfast to begin something far more demanding: 32 marathons in 32 days, one in every county across the island.

The scale is hard to grasp. Over 1,300 kilometres of running, day after day, with no real recovery window.

The route is designed to move through county towns, looping through places where people can join, support, or simply witness what is happening.

It is not just a physical challenge. It is a travelling conversation.

Ireland, in many ways, is central to the story. His family roots trace back to Longford and Leitrim, and the challenge itself is framed as both a tribute and a reckoning, a way of connecting past and future through something immediate and urgent.

Running Against Time

Most marathon runners are chasing a time or a personal best. Jordan is running because of one.

The condition he carries does not just threaten his life. It threatens who he is. The memories he holds, the personality he inhabits, the relationships he values

And so the urgency is not abstract. It is practical.

Raise money now. Start conversations now. Do something now.

The stated goal is ambitious: to raise around £1 million for dementia research and support services.

But the deeper objective is harder to quantify. It is about visibility. About forcing people to confront a disease that often unfolds quietly, behind closed doors.

A Moving Race

Unlike a traditional race, this challenge does not sit neatly on a calendar.

It moves.

Each day brings a new county, a new town, a new group of people who might join for a mile, a kilometre, or simply stand and watch. There is no fixed start line in the conventional sense, no mass field, no medals at the end.

Just a runner, moving forward, and an open invitation to anyone who wants to be part of it. 

The Route At A Glance

The journey unfolds as a steady sweep across the island:

April 27th – Antrim – Antrim
April 28th – Derry – Coleraine
April 29th – Donegal – Letterkenny
April 30th – Tyrone – Omagh
May 1st – Monaghan – Monaghan
May 2nd – Armagh – Armagh
May 3rd – Down – Belfast City Marathon
May 4th – Louth – Dundalk
May 5th – Meath – Navan
May 6th – Cavan – Cavan
May 7th – Fermanagh – Enniskillen
May 8th – Sligo – Sligo
May 9th – Mayo – Castlebar
May 10th – Leitrim – Carrick-on-Shannon
May 11th – Longford – Longford
May 12th – Roscommon – Roscommon
May 13th – Westmeath – Mullingar
May 14th – Galway – Galway City
May 15th – Clare – Shannon
May 16th – Limerick – Limerick City
May 17th – Kerry – Killarney
May 18th – Cork – Cork City
May 19th – Tipperary – Tipperary Town
May 20th – Waterford – Waterford City
May 21st – Kilkenny – Kilkenny City
May 22nd – Wexford – Wexford Town
May 23rd – Wicklow – Wicklow Town
May 24th – Carlow – Carlow Town
May 25th – Laois – Portlaoise
May 26th – Offaly – Tullamore
May 27th – Kildare – Kildare Town
May 28th – Dublin – Dublin (Finish)

There is no entry fee, no start funnel, no official field. Just a route, a time, and an open invitation.

Those looking to take part, even for a mile or two, can find full daily routes, start times, and meeting points here:
👉https://theftdbrothers.com/pages/irish-challenge 

More Than Just Miles

There is no neat ending to a story like this. No finish line that suddenly makes everything alright.

What Jordan Adams is doing across Ireland is not about a single run, or even 32 of them. It is about time. About using it while he has it, and refusing to let something so life altering sit quietly in the background.

It is also, at times, a difficult story to sit with. Not because of the miles, but because of what drives them.

And yet, for all of that, what stands out most is not the weight he carried in London, or the distance he is covering now. It is the simple act of moving forward, one day at a time, inviting others to come with him.

For those who want to support the effort, contributions can be made here:
👉https://www.gofundme.com/f/theftdbrothers/donate

Even a small gesture feeds into something much bigger. Not just funding, but awareness, conversation, and a refusal to look away.

Because in the end, this is not just one man’s run. It is a chance to be part of something that matters.