So here it goes!! Born at St. Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, Ireland, was the middle child of seven. Yes got three older brothers and two younger and my little sister. I do not have a middle name and there is a reason for that, I was baptized right after birth as I was not expected to make it out of the hospital alive (I guess that doctor was wrong).
So fast forward a few years; went to Inistioge National School. I started late. I was 6 before I started school, (was having too much fun on the farm, I was milking cows by the time I was four). From there I went to Thomastown VS with is much the same as High School in the US. Only difference is, after three years you take your first exam, then you are meant to go on for another two year and do the leaving cert. I never made it that far, had enough after three years. So makes me ask a lot of questions (explain later).
Got started running when I was in my first year at Thomastown, by this time two of my older brothers were also going to Thomasown VS and were running cross country. At first I had no interest in running. I was more into soccer but one evening I was watching my brother run around one of the fields on the farm and my late Father challenged me to run ahead of them and see if they could catch me (as always I’m up to a challenge) well neither one of them did catch me if fact I held the gap that I started with. So I was hooked.
So the next step was we joined a running Club in Thomastown and from there we transferred to St Joseph Athletic club, by this time my younger brother also had started to run as well, so now there were four of us. We had our own team and we were unbeatable.
For 13 years in a row we won the County Championship (which would be like a state meet in the US but you had to be over 16 to run in it). For the first 7 years it was a 6-man team and 7 1/2 mile cross country race, but then someone got the bright idea that our club could not be beaten so they reduced it to a 4 man team and shortened the race to a 10k. In fact they made it so much easier for us to win. So we went on and won it for another 6 years; we lost the race for the first time in 2001, the reason we lost (I believe) I was not able to make it home for the race. I had finished my undergrad and was working on a H1B1 visa which will not allow you to leave the country and get back in.
I started my first training Log December 2nd 1985 and I am still keeping account of the miles being logged. One of these days I will add the entire mileage together.
From my logs some PR’s:
Marathon: 2:32.55 Dublin should have run sub 2:25 but at 17mls I took a drink and by 18 miles I was throwing up
½ Marathon 1:07.47
10k road 30:40
5k road 15:01
The ups and downs of my running so far, well glad to say there are more ups than downs. Before coming to America 1990 was both a good year and a sad year, raced 34 times in the year, my best race was a 3.5 mile race which after the first mile, was uphill the rest was either flat or downhill I covered the course in 16:31 for the win.
It was a sad year as my Father was killed in a road accident, but later that year he was looking down on us as we made history by going 1-2-3-4 in the county cross country championship.
1993 was marathon pr year. Ran Boston in April for the first time 2:42.46 and then came back in Oct. and ran Dublin in 2:32.55
1995 Came back to Boston for the marathon and in August came back on scholarship to HPU (could look at that either way)
1996 100 Boston Marathon, got my butt in big trouble for running this one (but would do it all over again)
Dec 1999 Graduated College (not bad for a high school dropout)
May 2005 getting my Masters (again not bad for a dropout)
So back to the part of asks questions later. I came to University in the US, with no leaving cert, no SAT or no ACT. How did I pull that one off, I have no idea but graduated with a 3.01 in my undergraduate and a 4.0 in my Masters, not bad.
So looking back on my years as a college athlete, my running was a disappointment. Yes I won races, yes I ran fast times, but did not hit the goals I set for myself. Why? Well I believe the reason was poor coaching, this may also have been a good thing, as this is one of the reasons I started to read books (on running). I knew what the coach had me doing was not working, and like all “ good” coaches he was not willing to listen. So after first semester freshman year I started to coach myself. Yes I did show up for team practice but the day’s workout was either already done or I used what was posted as my warm up.
This brings me to my Philosophy of Coaching.
1. A coach is only as good as the athlete that he is coaching allows him to be. Let me explain, running is a sport and you get out of it as much as you are willing to put into it.
2. You are the coach not God, you do not know everything. This is where 90% of coaches fail, just because it works for one does mean it will work for everyone. No two bodies are the same.
3. Coaching is based on trust, you as the athlete trusting your coach that he/she wants the best for you and not being afraid to talk with him/her if you feel things are not working. There needs to be an open line of communication.
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