I can’t step onto a weighing scales at home anymore. Instead, I travel to the National Rehabilitation Hospital and roll onto a weighbridge in my wheelchair. Like an HGV driver being inspected at customs, I am pausing temporarily on my way to another place. My...
I had an unexpected rush of emotion this morning as I rolled into my kit room in Trinity College Dublin. Simone, my fiancée, hadn’t been in here for a while, and she said, “Oh, look! Your red table. I’d forgotten about your red table.” “Imagine,” she said, “There are...
Last Saturday morning I woke up, facing into my seventh and eighth training sessions in four days and I struggled. As my care assistant knocked the door, let himself in and made his way up the stairs in my house, I wanted to tell him to turn around and let me sleep...
I spend almost every day in the gym. I wear sports kit almost all of the time and I’m forever banging on about my diet and training. But I never have to change my kit after training because I never really sweat. The reason that I never really sweat is that my...
Last Sunday I dropped into The South Pole Inn in Annascaul, Co. Kerry to honour Tom Crean. He was a titan of the heroic age of polar exploration. He was born in Annascaul and the pub he ran after his polar exploration ended in 1916 still serves beer and is a memorial...
