To be or not to be, that is the question.
Everyone knows the quote, but how many of us actually know what it means? Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place in Elsinore, Denmark – which also happened to be the setting for our Ironman 70.3 event last Sunday.
Crowds lining the harbour are screaming. Five hundred metres from home on the swim, I’m settling into the race, feeling good, when suddenly my right calf seizes. Cramp! During a swim?! This is a first. And of all the places for it to happen – my first 70.3 – for reasons about to be disclosed, the most important race of my life.
Rewind to November 2018. I’m 39, on crutches in the Ulster Clinic, Belfast. My foot is so inflamed I can’t walk. Relentless, excruciating pain. I didn’t know it, but I was in the middle of my first flare-up. Later, I’m diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis, a chronic inflammatory condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue, damaging, sometimes destroying the joints completely.
I started taking a cocktail of medication every morning, focused on getting fit – but running was impossible. As a rheumatologist studied my X-ray, I asked him to give it to me straight – “Will I ever run again?” He gave me a wry smile, “Well, you’re not going to be running marathons. Maybe take up a new sport?” I was pissed off, but took it on the chin. The next day, I got in the pool and decided to teach myself how to swim.
Meanwhile, the medication (which works wonders for many people), wasn’t working for me – the pain suddenly spread through my shoulder, hand, sternum and clavicle. My body was on fire. I was close to breaking point when I stumbled upon a TED Talk by a physicist who had put his rheumatoid symptoms into remission through a wholefood plant-based diet. It was an epiphany, but it would mean giving up meat/dairy/alcohol – all processed foods. I gave it a shot. But the initial phase of the diet was extreme and my weight plummeted. I looked like a P.O.W. My parents were worried sick, but my wife, Celine kept the faith. For over a year, she’d seen how the condition had stripped me emotionally and physically. She grasped that to get out of the hole I was in, I was going to have to crawl in even deeper, and hope I’d come out the other side. And I did.
Month by month, blood test by blood test, my inflammatory markers fell, the pain gradually eased and eight months later, I was pain-free and eating something that resembled a normal diet. It had been nearly a year off my feet and my running legs had vanished, but on the plus side, swimming had become my new obsession. It filled the void running had left behind, but by 2020, I was moving again, and completed my first sprint triathlon in 2023, then another in 2024 – but I was injured before and after both races. In fact, I was always injured. Calves. Calves. Calves. The bane of my life.
Last autumn, I heard a few club members were heading to Denmark for a 70.3. Maybe a longer event would force me to slow down? And maybe slowing down would finally keep me injury-free? I signed up. Andy Ainley took no convincing. Elsinore was on!
Soon after, I was on the physio table again. Trish looked at me like I was crazy. “Your third triathlon? 70.3…? Have you ever done a half-marathon event?” “Yes,” I replied. (I lied). “You’ll be fine on the bike,” she said. “The run is going to be your problem.”
I began training last September. Every run was slow. Painfully slow. I was starting from scratch for what felt like the hundredth time – 3km runs at first, building gradually month by month. No hero sessions. No chasing times I could run ten years earlier. And finally, inspired by Andy who was smashing 5km and 10km PBS, I made time to get in the gym and started doing the boring stuff – vital boring stuff!
There were bumps along the way – an unexpected flare up that took me out for sixty days in March/April, a knee injury that lingered right into race week. Andy had been struggling too, shin splints, reduced running in the lead up. Thanks to us, Galway’s physios had run out of dry needles, but somehow, by the skin of our teeth, we made it to the start line.
GTC teammates Lisa Fahy and Claire Heskin had been immense in helping us prepare, but the final few days were bordering on farcical: no sleep, entire days spent building bikes, hauling gear across Denmark, cancelled trains and buses that never came. It wasn’t exactly textbook preparation. But there we were, standing on the harbour in Elsinore, about to go to war with ourselves for the next five and a half hours. We were both bricking it.
About 1.5km in, having navigated the tricky course and finally finding my rhythm, I started daring to dream. I’m in Elsinore harbour! Feeling like a feckin’ dolphin!! This is on! Then my old nemesis struck. The calf! Fully contracted, spasming. It wasn’t enough to stop me, but under the churn of the water, it was enough to send my mind into meltdown…
THE SWIM
As the cheers from the harbour grew louder, so did the inner voices, “You didn’t do enough strength work! You’re going to DNF in T1! Injured again! Blew it again!!”
I pushed on towards the swim exit where two volunteers pulled me to my feet. I took a step. Then another. Then, very cautiously, broke into a gentle jog along the blue carpet into T1. Relief. I was moving.
Transition areas in these events are enormous – and this was a clean transition zone, so instead of getting changed by racked bikes you first arrive into an outdoor changing area – hooks, race numbers, bags everywhere.
I grabbed my gear from the rack and took a breather, relieved I’d made it this far. Then Andy arrived just behind me. We’d done a relatively fast swim on tricky course and were buzzing. So much for our game plan of taking it easy!
THE BIKE
The bike leg wound through the centre of Elsinore before heading out towards the coast. It felt surreal. Three hours’ sleep the night before. Four the night before that. Somehow, I was now racing through Denmark, carbon wheels, super bikes humming all around me. I’d never been in an urban bike race before. It was a real buzz. Mario Cart in Lyrca!!
A few days earlier, arriving in Elsinore, Andy and I had noticed how smooth the roads were. We knew it would be an advantage, but this was something else…
Back home we’d spent months rattling along the road from Barna to Rosaveel, dodging potholes, battling headwinds and getting soaked to the skin. Here, even heading into a gentle headwind, it felt like I was pedalling on air. And the scenery was ridiculous! Woodland. Tiny villages. Endless fields bursting with colour. We were racing through a Monet painting!
At around 60kms, my energy and power began to dip. With my dietary restrictions, fuelling is tricky for me – everything is natural: dates, electrolytes, water and maple syrup. I downed some fluid, threw in some dates, and within 5kms, started to come back to life…
Going into the race, averaging 32km/h on the bike was the goal, so as I returned to the coast road, racing back into Elsinore, I was stunned to see my average speed creeping from 32.5… to 33… then up to 33.6km/h in the final stretch!
As I rolled into T2, Claire and Lisa were there – cheering me on – cheerleaders cheer, but these two had been so much more – they’d done everything for us in the days leading up to the event – support crew, advisors, planners, nutritionists. For 48 hours, I’d been dead on my feet due to lack of sleep. These two were the brains, unflappable problem solvers managing all the moving parts. They got us to the start line – and every time I heard them cheering, it pushed me on.
As I swung my leg over the bike, the calf was tight but had behaved. Mostly. Now it was time to find out if it would survive 21 kilometres – my first half marathon. This was it. I knew my race was about to be decided.
THE RUN,
My plan was simple: start conservatively, ease into the run and, if everything held together, gradually negative split my way towards 5:00 pace by halfway. But there were so many unknowns. Not just whether the calf would hold, but what pace I was actually capable of running!
95% of my training had been long slow runs, a handful of brick sessions. Very little intensity. No tempo work. No intervals. Slow running had got me to the start line. Now I needed to find out where it could take me. One kilometre in, I glanced at my watch. 4:55 pace. Not part of the plan! I eased off slightly, but my heart rate was under control and I felt surprisingly comfortable, so I decided to stay here and reassess at 7km…
As the sun blazed down and the temperature climbed, I grabbed cups of water at every aid station, pouring some over my head, drinking some, Precision Hydration disappearing into my system at an alarming rate. Probably too much.
For the first time all day, maybe for the first time all year, everything felt easy. At 7km I nudged the pace down into the 4:50s. At 14km I pushed again into the 4:40s. Heart rate was steadily climbing, but I felt like I had more in the tank, so as I hit the last 5kms, I decided see if I could get into the 4:30s. But then the calf started whispering. And another voice entered the conversation, Trish’s words from one of my last physio visits – “If you try to smash this race, you’ll be disappointed.” I listened. And I backed off, staying around 4:45 pace.
Time to soak it all in, the crowds, the atmosphere, random Danes shouting my name as if they’d known me their whole lives. Three laps through town, past Elsinore castle one final time. And suddenly I was running down the red carpet.
I don’t know whether it was the lack of sleep, the adrenaline or some combination of the two, but the entire day felt like an out-of-body experience. Six hours earlier I’d arrived at the start line exhausted, nervous, icing my knee, convinced I wouldn’t finish. Now I was standing under the iconic Ironman finish line, a friendly Viking hanging a medal around my neck.
Then, spotting Andy, I beamed. He had been battling injuries too. He’d barely run in the lead-up. I hadn’t seen him at all on the run course, so I knew he’d had a stormer. When he told me he’d finished in 5:02 and I wasn’t far behind him, my jaw hit the floor.
5:15 would have been a brilliant day for me. My watch read 5:05:15. I couldn’t believe it. We just sat there for a while, reeling in shock. Months of pressure, (of our own making!), had suddenly evaporated. Our wives, Celine and Aoife, had endured every complaint, every wobble and every irrational panic during those nine months of preparation. They’d earned those finish times as much as we had. It was an emotional moment. Not because we’d won anything. But because we’d got there.
When Niall Guerin crossed the finish line, it was another huge moment. After a traumatic DNF in Cork a few years ago, Niall faced his fear of open water in Elsinore harbour and overcame countless hurdles just to reach this moment. Talk about bravery.
For all of us this was so much more than just a finish line – it was the culmination of years of hard work, setbacks, failures, picking ourselves up and stumbling forward…
Maybe that’s the point? We don’t grow when life’s easy or we’re freewheeling. We grow by enduring. Persevering. By refusing to give up.
The older we get the more crap life seems to throw at us. We can’t choose the knocks that come our way, but we can choose how we respond.
Focus on the things you can control.
Keep going.
To be, or not to be. That is the question.
