Category Archives: Training

Morning Adjustments

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This morning felt hard.

Fionn kicked up last night and neither of us slept particularly well. I’m not fully sure what was underneath it all. Maybe the exams he expected today. Maybe the transition back to his mum’s later. Maybe just exhaustion and overwhelm building quietly beneath the surface.

Whatever it was, the night felt unsettled.

This morning I woke him and, to his credit, he got up and had a shower. But while I was in the shower myself, he climbed back into bed and fell asleep again.

A few years ago I probably would have handled a morning like this very differently.

I think part of me always believed difficult situations needed to be pushed through immediately. Keep moving. Keep forcing forward. Don’t lose momentum.

But life — grief especially — has slowly taught me that people are not machines.

Sometimes systems get overloaded.
Sometimes bodies and minds need more time.
Sometimes adjusting the target is wiser than escalating the pressure.

So this morning I decided to leave him sleeping until 9:30 and then try for school at 10 instead.

Not giving up on the day.
Not pretending everything is fine.
Just adjusting.

And honestly, I’m exhausted too.

Last night was also my first night trying the new CPAP F40 mask. I still don’t know if it’s better or worse yet. Part of this whole process seems to involve constantly experimenting, adjusting, and trying to figure out what helps.

Maybe rebuilding life is a bit like that too.

Not dramatic breakthroughs.
Not sudden transformation.

Just small adjustments.
Small attempts.
Small acts of continuing.

The plan now is simple:
try get Fionn into school,
then meet Izabela and go to the gym.

Nothing extraordinary.

But more and more I’m beginning to think healing often looks exactly like this:
ordinary difficult mornings where you keep adapting instead of collapsing.

Update:
We didn’t make it to school today.

I tried encouraging Fionn until about 1pm, but there was no way to get him there.

As the morning went on, it became clearer that a big part of what was underneath things was anxiety around the Drumcondra tests happening today. He didn’t want to do them in class with everyone else and wanted instead to do them separately at another time.

I think moments like this are part of why parenting children through anxiety, grief or overwhelm can feel so difficult at times. From the outside it can simply look like “not going to school”, but underneath that can be fear, pressure, embarrassment, exhaustion or a nervous system that has simply tipped into overload.

Part of me still finds days like this hard. I still want to fix things, solve things, and somehow make everything ok immediately.

But I’m also learning that forcing someone through overwhelm rarely creates safety.

So today became less about “winning the battle” and more about trying to keep connection intact while helping him regulate enough to get through the day.

And actually, by the end of the day, there were still some positives.

Fionn spoke a bit about secondary school and said he feels like it might be a fresh start for him.

He also said he wants to try to get into school for the rest of the week while staying with his mom.

And despite how difficult the day felt at times, he still did 20 minutes of guitar practice this afternoon.

A few years ago with Haze and Brooke I probably wouldn’t even have noticed moments like that. I would have only focused on the fact that school didn’t happen.

But maybe progress is sometimes quieter and more complicated than that.

Maybe some days progress is simply:
holding onto hope,
keeping connection,
and ending the day in a slightly better place than it began.

Darkness into Light

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Darkness Into Light 2026

On Friday night — or, as Fionn kept reminding me, Saturday morning — Fionn and I walked Darkness Into Light together.

For the last four years I signed up for this walk and never managed to do it. Every year I wanted to walk for Haze, and every year it felt too heavy, too painful, or simply beyond what I could emotionally manage.

This year was different.

It was still hard.
There were moments during the walk where I could feel the grief sitting just beneath the surface. Even writing this now brings tears to my eyes.

But we did it.

Not quickly.
Not easily.
But together.

There is something powerful about walking through darkness as dawn begins to arrive. Thousands of people carrying stories you cannot see. Grief. Love. Depression. Loss. Survival. Hope.

At one point I found myself thinking about all the people walking beside me who could not see how broken I felt inside. Even Fionn could not fully see it.

And yet maybe, just maybe, that is part of what healing looks like.

Not the disappearance of pain, but the possibility that one day life might hold moments of joy alongside it.

Five years after losing Haze, I still don’t have neat answers about grief. I don’t think grief is something you “finish”. I think it becomes something you learn to carry differently over time.

For a long time, survival itself was the achievement.

Lately, though, I’ve started noticing small shifts:

• getting back into the gym
• swimming again
• trying to return to running
• beginning CPAP treatment for severe sleep apnoea
• slowly reconnecting with life instead of only enduring it

Doing this walk felt kind of like the old me again.
Moving towards the hard stuff instead of letting it control me.

None of this is dramatic.
Most of it is invisible from the outside.

But maybe healing often looks like that.

One quiet step at a time.

Walking beside Fionn last night mattered to me more than the distance or the event itself. It reminded me that even after immense loss, connection still exists. Love still exists.

And maybe that is what Darkness Into Light is really about.

Not pretending the darkness isn’t real.
But continuing to walk anyway until morning comes.

Haze — always in my heart.

Kicking a Ball Around

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This evening Aidan and I went outside and kicked a football around for a while before coming back in to watch the match together on TV.

Nothing major.
No deep conversations.
No big life lessons.

Just passing the ball back and forth.

A few years ago I probably would have underestimated moments like this. I think part of me always believed playing ball with your children was simply something dads did, and that meaning came from achievement, milestones or intensity.

Marathons.
Ultra-marathons.
Big goals.
Big moments.

Showing my kids that if you try hard and don’t give up you can achieve anything.

But grief changes your understanding of life.

You start to realise that some of the most important moments are actually the smallest ones. The ordinary moments that quietly become memories before you even realise they matter.

And maybe part of healing is slowly allowing the constant fear of losing another child to loosen its grip a little.

Allowing both them and me to live ordinary moments together without every moment carrying the weight of fear.

Kicking a ball around with your son.

Laughing when one of you miskicks it.

Talking nonsense about football.

Sitting beside each other watching a match without needing to force conversation.

(And Arsenal winning was definitely a bonus.)

There’s something comforting about that kind of connection.

Simple.
Uncomplicated.
Present.

As parents, I think we sometimes put pressure on ourselves to create perfect memories for our children. Big holidays. Big experiences. Constant meaning.

But more and more I think children often remember something else entirely.

That you were there.

That you spent time with them.

That you shared ordinary life together.

Tonight reminded me that healing and connection don’t always arrive through huge breakthroughs.

Sometimes they arrive quietly, disguised as an ordinary evening kicking a football around with your son.

And I hope Aidan felt that connection tonight too, and that moments like this quietly continue to strengthen the relationship between us.

Jungle Ultra 2018

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It has taken me a long time to write this post.

Not because I forgot the Jungle Ultra, but because I’m still trying to understand what it meant to me.

The Jungle Ultra is a 230km self-sufficient ultramarathon through the Peruvian Amazon. Five stages. Heat, humidity, river crossings, mud, insects, isolation, exhaustion and very little comfort. Everything you need for the week is carried on your back.

People often ask why anyone would do something like that.

I’m not sure there’s ever a simple answer.

When I first attempted the Jungle in 2016, I failed. At the time that hurt badly. I had finished other ultras, back-to-back marathons and long endurance events, but the Jungle broke me. Coming home after failing felt harder than the race itself.

So in 2018 I went back.

Not to prove I was stronger than the Jungle.
Not to conquer it.
Just to see if I could meet it differently.

The strange thing about endurance events is that eventually they stop being about running. They become about honesty. About what happens when exhaustion strips away distraction, noise and performance.

Somewhere in the middle of the Jungle, during endless rain and mud, another runner asked me about the date on my race number: 16.6.11.

That was the day KatieAnn was born and died.

She lived for just under twelve hours.

Even now, years later, I still carry her with me when I run. Maybe that sounds strange to some people, but grief has its own geography. Certain miles, certain landscapes, certain moments open doors inside you.

The Jungle did that constantly.

There were moments of incredible beauty. Running through clouds of mist as the rainforest woke up. The sound of birds before sunrise. Villages appearing out of nowhere. Children cheering runners through deep mud. Standing under freezing water trying to cool a body that felt close to overheating.

And there were darker moments too.

Moments where the mind gets very quiet and very honest.

Out there, stripped of normal life, titles, jobs and routines, you realise how little separates strength from vulnerability. Many of the people drawn to races like this are carrying something. Loss. Fear. Grief. Questions they cannot answer in ordinary life.

I think perhaps that is part of why we go.

Not to escape ourselves.
But to meet ourselves more clearly.

Finishing the Jungle Ultra in 2018 remains one of the hardest things I have ever done. But strangely, it no longer feels important because of the finish line.

What stays with me now are the smaller moments:
shared silence,
kindness between exhausted strangers,
the feeling of continuing forward one difficult step at a time,
and the reminder that human beings are capable of far more than we think.

Looking back now, I realise the Jungle was never just about endurance.

It was about learning that suffering and beauty can exist beside each other.
That grief can travel with us without destroying us.
And that sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is simply keep moving forward.

Jungle Ultra — Knowing When to Stop

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It’s taken me a few weeks to write this post.

I think part of me needed some distance from the Jungle Ultra before I could properly process what happened out there.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Jungle Ultra is a 230km self-sufficient ultramarathon through the Peruvian Amazon. Five stages through heat, humidity, rivers, mud and terrain that never really lets you settle.

And this year, around 10km into Stage 5, my race ended.

At the time I was devastated.

After months of training and preparation, I had travelled across the world to stand on the start line of one of the hardest endurance races on the planet, only to withdraw before the finish.

The Jungle is relentless.

The heat never really leaves you. Your feet are constantly wet. Small issues quickly become serious problems. Sleep becomes limited, food becomes functional and your body slowly starts to break down day after day.

By the end of Stage 3 I was already struggling badly.

I spent the morning of Stage 5 debating whether I should even start. Deep down, I knew something wasn’t right. My body had reached a point where continuing was no longer about determination or mental strength. It had become something else — stubbornness at any cost.

About 10km into the stage I stopped moving forward and had to make the hardest decision of the race:
to withdraw.

Everything in me wanted to keep going.

I’ve always believed in pushing through difficult moments. In endurance sport you learn very quickly that pain is temporary and that most limits are negotiable. Usually, if you keep moving forward long enough, things improve.

But this felt different.

Looking back now, maybe one of the real lessons of endurance is learning the difference between discomfort and damage. Between courage and denial.

For the first few days after the race I found it hard to look at the photos or even talk about the experience. I felt like I had unfinished business in the Jungle.

But with a bit of distance, my perspective has started to shift.

Over the course of that week I saw extraordinary things:
people helping each other through impossible conditions,
runners continuing despite injuries and exhaustion,
moments of humour in the middle of suffering,
and landscapes so beautiful they almost didn’t feel real.

The Jungle strips life back to basics.

Eat. Move. Recover. Continue.

Somewhere along the way, all the normal noise disappears.

At the medal ceremony I had already made my decision.

I didn’t accept a finisher’s medal because, in my mind, I hadn’t finished. Sitting there watching the other runners receive theirs, I realised something very clearly:
I was coming back.

Not because I wanted revenge on the Jungle.
Not because I needed to prove something to anyone else.

But because I needed to prove to myself that I had it in me.

Right now I still don’t know whether going back is a good idea or a stupid one.

But I know this experience changed me.

And strangely, one of the things I keep coming back to is that failure isn’t always clean or dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s simply reaching a point where your body says “enough” and having to listen.

What I do know is this:
sometimes strength is continuing forward,
and sometimes strength is knowing when you can’t.

And maybe real strength is being willing to return anyway.