The darkness never came

Read part 1 and part 2 of Niall’s story.

The Wednesday before I left for Copenhagen I went out for a light jog to clear my head and also keep my legs ticking over. Throughout the week my calf muscles had been threatening to cramp at the slightest attempt of exercise while I searched through Google with microscopic detail to try and decipher why the hell my body was starting to break down on me the very week I needed its full capacity.

The online community suggested perhaps it was a lack of magnesium or potassium, or maybe I needed more salt in my diet, I even started to drink pickle juice as was suggested by a handful of studies. The reality was my body was just fine, well prepared and conditioned for the challenge that lay ahead of it after 12 months of intense training, however, Jeffrey wasn’t so sure and his way of versing his concerns were by tricking my body into believing it was injured.

When I arrived to the airport the next day I was frighteningly close to just getting back into the car and going home. I had spent months mentally preparing for this week as well as physically but my head just didn’t want to play ball. My confidence was low and I questioned whether I could even swim anymore. Once I got on the plane I simply accepted that there was no turning back and it was time to zone in on the next couple of days.

Over the following few days I refused to do any of my training plan as we had our final few sessions before the Ironman on Sunday. I went out to register for the race and the vision of 3000 other athletes somewhat reduced my anxiety as they all made last minute preparations for the event. The lady who was signing me in asked me was I Irish, then proceeded to tell me she used to go out with an Irish lad and he was a complete bollix (or the Danish equivalent). I apologised for my fellow Irishman’s aresholeness and assured her most of us were sound. It was these brief moments of engagement that broke the monotony of speaking about the race in every other conversation.

I returned back to the hotel and pretty much stayed in my room on Google looking for some last minute solutions to my cramping dilemma. I wasn’t in a great place so I avoided all my colleagues and friends who were doing the event as I simply did not want to promote my anxieties on to them. I filled the time by meditating and visualising the race and although I didn’t truly feel it I consistently spoke positively to myself about what I was attempting.

I also had read an interesting mental fitness tip for endurance events such as these that I was practising throughout my preparations. I would close my eyes and visualise a positive word such as “power, strength, focus, resilience etc.” and I would make a mental folder on a desktop computer. Each time I mediated I would place these words into the folder and anytime I felt uneasy I would close my eyes, go into the folder and remove a word and put it on my mental desktop. I had been practising this for a few months and although simple I found it deeply affective in reducing my nerves.

Athletes tend to do a practise swim the day before on the course but I decided that I wouldn’t do this which was a risk, but I felt I wanted to just take my chances and test my calves on the day of the race. Looking back this wasn’t a great idea as I should have tested my goggles and wet suit to make sure there were no last minute malfunctions.

I checked in my bike into the transition area and went back to my hotel to go to bed as I had to get up at 4am the following morning as the race started at 7am. The chances of me sleeping were nil and I just lay on my bed watching family guy and pacing around the room glaring at the time gradually eroding towards 4am.

Amazingly I nodded off for a few hours and when I woke up to my alarm a sense of unexplainable adrenaline pulsed through my veins like nothing I had ever experienced. I had been told by many Ironman athletes that these feelings can come on race week a few days before the event but for me it literally ignited every inch of my body just four hours before I was due to get into the water to commence my swim.

I won’t lie, I’m glad no one was in the room with me, it was a moment I wanted to share with just myself and Jeffrey and it was a special one. It was like all at once my reasons for doing this race and the hundreds of hours of training collided and the result was an unwavering belief that I was going to finish this Ironman and everything was going to go according to plan. The anxiety left my body like a thoroughly satisfying belch and the twinges and pains in my calves became so irrelevant that they didn’t even exist. I marched down for breakfast with my colleague Jarlath and a sense of calm focus allowed me to actually enjoy stuffing my face before the race as this is usually a chore due to the nerves decimating any shred of appetite.

A bus was organised for all the athletes in the hotel to bring us to the swim start and I quietly sat down and listened to some music. I had my iTunes on shuffle and just as we pulled up to the swim start area a song came on my headphones that I hadn’t heard in years. It may sound massively cheesy, but that song was Riverdance. This immediately brought me back to the night I witnessed this for the first time during Eurovision, the hundreds of dancers lining the stage for the crescendo moment where they all join forces. I’ll never forget watching that with the hairs vibrating and standing to attention on the back of my neck.

It was up there with many other moments when I felt deeply proud of my heritage and culture. It sounds odd but it’s in these moments that songs can often become knock-out powerful and I smiled from the minute I got off that bus until I walked to do last minute checks on my bike and wet suit in transition. There were thousands of people in transition from all over the world and then over the massive PA system “the streets have no name” was blasted out. You could see the Irish people in the area heads lift with a sense of determination and pride.

This was it, after a long, tough and liberating journey my race was about to start. I made my way to the water for my 3.9km swim, watched the countdown and off I went into the sea. My right calf immediately shot off a warning sign as I began my kick but I did not care, if it goes it goes. I think the army of jellyfish that decided to make the swim start their temporary home diverted my attention away from my legs. There was a thick fog over the sea so it was hard to even make out where we were going but I remained calm and genuinely excited that I was now in the middle of a race I had prepared so long for.

Coming to the end of the swim I could feel my calves actually loosening out which was ideal as the bike leg of the Ironman was where I was aiming at. The first people I saw getting out of the water were my sister Andrea and Mum. I tore off my wet suit and made my way to the bike for the 180km route and I felt good. My head and my body just felt like they were perfectly aligned.

Once on the bike the race really started. Another technique I had incorporated into my training during hard bike sets was to monitor and regulate my breathing. You push hard on an Ironman bike and because it’s over such a long distance you have to pace yourself wisely. While breathing I would mentally say “breathe in the positive energy and breathe out the toxic energy” and this almost feels hypnotic. The positive energy that surrounds an event like this is gargantuan and if you let yourself submerge into it, it can give you such a lease of life when you need it most.  When fatigue started to introduce itself I would concentrate more on this and it always pulled me through. The heat was really starting to tell. It was a glorious day in Copenhagen and temperatures were in the high 20s and of course any sunscreen I had applied was gone from sweat and the swim.

Coming to the end of the 180km bike I felt strong and excited to get into the city centre to start the marathon where there were 200,000 spectators lining the streets. Getting off the bike my legs went to complete jelly for a minute or two as I informed them not to worry as we only have a fecking marathon left.

The first two laps of the run were not bad but I had been told by many Ironman athletes that in the marathon section the darkness always comes. It hits you at some stage and your entire body and mind shut down and every inch of you wants to stop, everyone experiences it by all accounts. But the darkness never came. The pain came, but I embraced that, the darkness never did. On the third lap both my calves finally decided to cramp but I didn’t care as the finish line with every step was becoming more of a tangible reality.

As a great friend Gerry Duffy once said, just put one foot in front of the other. I was also burnt to a crisp but I simply could not stop smiling.

On the last run lap I tried to embrace the atmosphere and when I could see the finishing line I just broke out into tears. A tsunami of emotion overcame me as I crossed the line and saw my family. This was never about the race, this was bigger than that for me and for my family. You find when you repress something for so long it will come out somewhere and mine came out at the finishing line of an Ironman. Two years previously I watched friends cross that line and I knew it was something I had to do for many different reasons, and it had to be in Copenhagen.

Niall hugging his Mum Mandy at the finish line