Why on earth would you wake up early in the morning, when everyone else is still sound asleep and pull on some Lycra clothing like a kids party budget superhero.
Back in 2016 I was heading into the tail end of my 30's and after spending the best part of a decade jumping between 9-5 corporate drone and co-parenting two boys, I had more or less abandoned regular exercise and achieved that round middle Dad-bod. I was now living vicariously through the sporting achievements of my most active son.
The Pain
Life is kind of funny though, often tragic, and one generic day in the office I got the call that my Dad had passed away and I was completely unprepared for how hard that would hit me. The man was my idol. It wasn't just that he had impressed me as a boy with his physical skills, but that growing up I got to see how much of a community man, a peacekeeper, a friend, a leader he was as well. I did a lot of self assessment after he died and I honestly feel that in his passing, he left a final gift to us as well.
In the months later I realised I was not healthy, I was overweight, I was drinking too much and my diet was not benefiting me in any way. I knew I was not part of the community in the same way he was, I knew I did not have any physical or mental challenges in my life the way he had and so the changes started small and anything you can do regularly can quickly become habit, and habit becomes part of your personality and then stops being a thing you do, it just becomes you.
The Challenge
The first challenge landed at my feet. I was an underage coach with our local GAA team and in small talk heard that a masters team was looking for people 39 and over to build a panel. I hadn't played since I was 19, but I knew I used to be good, and used to be fast, so under the assumption that I could at least make the subs bench I started running to drop some weight and hope to have the fitness needed to play a few training matches.
The weight dropped off, my speed somehow was still there under the fat and almost 20 years on the couch meant I had zero injuries to worry about so surprisingly I managed to dig my way into the panel, not only to the subs, but actually playing competitively up and down the country for my adopted county. My claim to fame now is that for a lad raised in Sligo, who never played at Club level in Kildare, I got to play corner back for the Kildare county team for just over two years.
Running however was the backbone of my training. Every match we lost, every bad performance or missed ball, I would be out on the road the following day, running harder, pushing myself faster. Regardless of coach or team mates, I was my own worst critic, my own motivation. Dad had for years mentioned he liked to watch me play and it was a shame I had stopped when I did, so while I'm not religious I could still feel him watching me, wondering if he was proud of what I had achieved.
The Decision
After just over 2 years though, the physical toll of full contact senior football was a concern. I was now also back taking part in regular 5k fun runs and towards the end of 2019 had done my first 15k adventure run, so despite my love of competitive football and that camaraderie felt within a team sport, the idea that an injury might impact my running became the driving force that identified which sport I had actually grown to love, and which I had to step away from.
Running had become part of my personality, or to be more accurate, the runner inside me had pushed himself out from under those personal blockages and taken his place at the surface at last. I remember one day at work, I was heading out for a run at lunch, and one colleague who also ran all the time started talking with me about pace and distance. I asked him to join me and he laughed a little and said "I'm a plodder Enda, I'll get there eventually, but you are a runner, so you'll get there first".
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