From Darkness to Light: A Journey for Greatness

My name is not important; I’m an ordinary man who lives an ordinary life. I like this life, but this year I decided to strive for something more in my life. I decided to become the man I always wanted to be.

The journey started on January 8^th 2013. It was 5:25 am and I simply could not sleep and felt no way tired whatsoever. For some reason that I still cannot truly fathom, I decided to go for a run. It was tough, but I felt good and was happy that I did it. In fact, I was buzzing so I decided to keep going at silly o’clock in the morning. My first real foray into road running was on New Year’s Day 2013. It was a five mile charity road race organised by my GAA club. I’m a sucker for charities so I did it. It was torture. I couldn’t walk for three days as my legs were so stiff. Despite this, I liked it. It wasn’t as bad as I first feared. Anyway, back to the real beginning. I kept running every day, and I was feeling the benefits. I decided to take it seriously, make a real good stab at it now that I had begun the journey. I reduced the amount of food I ate. I used to love food. I still do, but I used to eat food like no tomorrow! I went down to three meals a day. The basic set of breakfast, lunch and dinner. I stopped eating after my dinner, for which I was notorious for.

I was improving as a runner, but I was still quite naïve. I hadn’t proper footwear, and my feet were suffering for this a few weeks into it! I had to splash out on a new pair of Aasics trainers. Believe me, they weren’t cheap! I didn’t mind that, it was about getting my feet right at that stage as they were hurting like hell. I was going good at this stage, I was about three weeks on the trail, but then I met my first real challenge. Every person that has ever been a runner has regularly spoken about the wall. And on this Friday, I hit mine with a spectacular bang. It was my first morning with my shiny new trainers. I was like a child at Christmas; I couldn’t wait to use them. So off I go with my new trainers, full of zest, full of hope. It started off fine, but then once I hit my first checkpoint, the laces came undone. Fair enough, these things happen, but I hated having to stop to tie them as I was losing time. I tied them, and trotted off again. Then, every injury I had prior to that hit me like a train. I had a groin strain, ligament damage in my ankle from the year before and sore knees. It was horrible, I mean, it was my worst nightmare. I had to stop. I absolutely hated what was happening. I felt weak, I felt vulnerable and I was angry. I pondered giving up, I really did. I was standing in the middle of a quiet road at 5:50 am on a Friday morning wondering what the hell was going to happen. But then I realised, what would be the point of giving up? It wasn’t in me to give up; I’d never forgive myself, so I walked for a while. I then started running again; it hurt me so much I can’t even describe it to you. I eventually completed my run, but the time to me didn’t even matter at that stage. The fact I finished it all was an achievement. I concluded that I had to get a good swim to relax myself. It worked a treat, and I took the weekend off (at least from running) to get myself right.

I was pleased that I won this battle, I needed to, it’s moments like those are the ones that can make or break a person. It made me. All the while, I was training with my hurling club. That was fine with me, I got in extra exercise by myself and I could use it to benefit me at training. It was hard to balance them at the start as I wasn’t used to training on my own, but I got around it. Initially, I was doing seven days a week, which is utter madness when you think about it really. I then got more structured. I would get up at 5:30 am on Monday to Friday and take Saturday off. I would then run on Sunday nights as it would be dark, and I like running in the dark. I could see the benefits more and more. I was beginning to noticeably lose weight; I was getting stronger and faster. Speaking of strength, I started doing push-ups and sit-ups to help my core area. I was doing this for a long time, but, between hurling training and the running, I was making myself sick as I was doing too much for my own good.

At this stage, February had almost passed and even I; my worst critic, could even see I was toning up. I was delighted, but knew I had more to do. I was so used to being heavy that you just, simply, accept your load and ignore it. Especially when you were heavy for as long as I was; I was heavy since 12 more or less, and I was never, ever truly happy about it. I was not morbidly obese or anything, but I was overweight nonetheless. Anyway, at this stage I was beginning to start getting good at running. I was doing 2 miles in 17 minutes. Not bad, considering I did it in 23 minutes on that awful Friday I discussed.

The mental side to it is obvious, but it’s much deeper than anybody could ever realise. I have always had a deep, innate, fear of the dark. As daft as it sounds then, I like running in the dark. I wonder about myself sometimes……..Anyway, some mornings were awful for me. As it was so scary, I was always running from the dark, into more darkness. But it was good for me. It taught me to face my fears and while you’ll always be scared of things, it’s how you react to fear is the measure of a person. I was seeing things that weren’t there. One morning I nearly got a heart attack as I thought I had encountered a person standing in a ditch! But thankfully, it was merely a piece of light and my mind playing tricks on me.

At the beginning of March, the weight loss was really obvious and I was beginning to look really thin. It was great, and along with it, my confidence was growing. I began to look into psychology more and more, and that’s how I discovered how the mighty Muhammad Ali really thought about himself and the world around him. People always assumed he was arrogant, but he was anything but. He had great self-belief, but knew he had to continue to train hard to keep at his great heights. He knew he was better than his opponents, but was also aware that this meant nothing if he got beaten. He knew his strengths and weaknesses, but also knew how to defeat himself. He had a good view of the world. He helped people and still does. He always pondered about the more philosophical aspects of humanity and cared deeply for his fellow man. He summed himself up for me in his a pre-match press conference when he told George Foreman that “I’m a show you how great I am”. Those words became my motto. I am great, why am I not? I began to get more confident in myself. I began to have this burgeoning sense of pride within myself that I’m not sure was ever there. It was good, I was improving my social skills more and more. I was never shy, but now I could talk to a stone about the recession.

As I finish this, I’m sitting in a computer room on the 20^th March at 12:53 pm. I now run six times a week, I can do my run in 15 minutes, I’m training for a five kilometre run on the 27^th of April and I’m leaving my old hurling club for a new one, because I finally had the cop-on to realise I was being messed around with as I was never being played. I can talk to women now, a feat that was almost unimaginable only three months ago. I feel happy, proud and strong; both physically and mentally. I was 15 stone 9 pounds and now I’m currently 13 stone 11 pounds. That’s 2 stone 4 pounds of a loss so far. I hope to get down to 13 and a half stone, but I’ll review that when and if the time comes. There are plenty more challenges to come of this. Whatever about losing the weight, it’s keeping it down is the trick also. I’ve come a long way, but I’ve a lot more to go. And you know what? Bring it on, because I’m ready.

The story never ends until you want it to.

PS: To show how I really feel I'll show you a poem I wrote. 

I Am Great

I am great, why am I not?
How can you say whether I am or not?
I am the King of my universe, I call the shot,
And for those of you who doubt my greatness in hell you can rot.

I am great, but I can make myself better,
So I will, and what makes you say I cannot?

Who are you to say "you can't do this" or "you're not good enough", I will make myself better,

I can be whatever I want to be because I want to be, because I can,
I will be whatever I want to be, because I'm my own man.

Never let a person say "you can't" ,
No, you tell them "I can", in fact, you shout it,
You shout it to the heavens, you think it no matter what you do or where you go,
Because with this thinking, with grace and style you will flow.

Don't hate the person who doubts you,

No, you pity them, how dare you challenge my greatness?
With this greatness, you inspire your fellow man,
You use this influence, to make him or her say "I CAN"

Greatness is not easy to gain,
You must go through pain,
Show yourself why you're great,
Do it before it becomes too late.

Men of Greatness earn their name,
They fight for the right to be great,
Through honesty, dedication and without shame,
They know and act like they're first rate.

I am great, who are you to say I'm not?
I'm a show you how great I am.

Why can't you be great?