About Me

Welcome to my running blog.
Galtee Mountains - Nov 2016


I started this blog in conjunction with my Garmin stats as motivation with my running and so I can log my progress since I started running.

I've never been into sports, in school I never really played hurling or football but I used to like cycling and walking....I'd walk anywhere!   In my 20's I cycled around 10miles a day getting to work and back on a daily basis and when I learned to drive I took up some hill walking at the weekends to try make up for the lack of cycling.

As I was heading into my 30's I decided to give running a go, so I gave it a shot in 2009 and within days I had a chest infection. That put an end to my running idea.

In Feb 2010 I decided again to give running a shot and so I started following the coach25k plan using my iPod. I had it hard going following the plan and really suffered from shin splints to the points where I'd have to sit in a freezing cold bath of water after a run just to be able to walk the next day.

After following about 4 weeks of coach25k I decided sod this and I decided to scrap it and just try running the 5km none stuff without any ipod, to my amazement I managed it!

A few weeks later I chanced doing my first 10km and after that I decided that in September 2010 I'd try running my first half marathon, I finished it in 1:56.04 it was hard as hell!

So I kept running and in June 2011 I did my first marathon, in retrospect I was ill-prepared as I wasn't doing nearly enough miles in training. I really experienced a lot of problems once I hit mile 18 and it was a real slog to the finish (I don't recommend doing this)

However its all a learning process and since then I've put in more and more miles and the marathons got easier and easier,

Connemara 100 - August 2017
In 2012 I started doing Ultramarathons by doing my first 50km race, I've never seen myself as a fast runner so this spurred me on to see just how far I could run so in 2014 I did my first 100km and finished it in just over 12hours (2hours longer then I had planned!).

For 2015 I decided I wanted to take on a 100mile run for the first time so as part of the training I did a 50mile race (that went perfectly) and then I headed off to run 100miles along the Thames River in England from London to Oxford.

In all honesty, it was the hardest race I've ever run up until then and you can read all about it here, since then I've run two more 100mile races in 2016 and again in 2017.


For anyone reading my blog that thinks the distances I run are not something they'd ever be able to do, don't sell yourself short!     When I started running I thought 5km was a distance I'd never run, then I viewed 10miles as a distance I'd never run, then 20miles, then 30miles, then 40miles etc.     If a chap that was never sporty in school can do this then so can anyone else can :)

Personal Bests:
3miles - Stoneyford 3mile Road Race - 20:17 (02/07/14)
5km - Kilkenny Parkrun - 21:12 (11/10/14)
10km - JJ Reddy Danesfort 10K Road Race - 40:58 (21/09/14)
13.1mile - JJ Reddy Half Marathon - 1:29:33 (19/09/15)
26.2miles - Dublin City Marathon - 3:29:06 (30/10/16)
100miles - Connemara 100 - 27:14:36 (06//08/16)

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