Cathal Dennehy won the 2006 Sunday Tribune Peter Ball Memorial Competition for Aspiring Sports Journalists with
this article. A truly inspirational piece about injury, competitiveness, pain, and, ultimately, victory, it was published
in the Sunday Tribune in April 2007. Cathal, (pictured above no. 568), is an athlete with Emerald AC in Limerick.
W
T
hen an athlete gets injured, it's akin to
amputating a chair's leg and expecting it
to stand. The leg which supports them,
defines them, disappears.
A chunk of Dungarvan mud is nestled on his
shoulder blade, flicked upwards from his spikes in
the torrid conditions. He angrily puffs a stream of
air from his mouth, emerging like white smoke in
the icy November air.
They have no option but to accept their fall to the
floor, try not to hit their head on landing. When
that athlete's chosen sport is one which requires
obsession and insanity in equal doses, the fall is
that much harder. Few know the loneliness of the
injured long-distance runner.
wo kilometres left. This is it, now or never.
Go with him. This is the move, damn it,
stick with him. My eyes narrow and focus
on his left shoulder. His grey singlet ripples as he
leads into the wind.
I tore my hamstring in 2004. However, it wasn't
one of those tears you read about in papers. The
ones where some player tears a hammy, goes to
some treatment centre at minus 500 degrees, and
then miraculously emerges the following weekend
with an inspirational performance.
One kilometre left, and as we charge alone into
the quietest part of the course, we hear nothing
but each other's footsteps. Just us, two teenagers
gasping for oxygen as they try to hang on for three
more agonising minutes. I feel like agreeing a
truce while we're out here, 50-50, we'll split the
gold medal. Such thoughts don't reside long in
the mind. They are quickly replaced by more
animal instincts.
You or him, Cathal.
You
choose. Are you going to let him beat you?
No, this was a sinister, evil, chronic rip in the top
of my right hamstring. Evil enough to require five
physiotherapists and three doctors to diagnose.
Evil enough to prevent me sitting in the same
position for more then ten minutes. Evil enough to
sentence me to the couch for six months.
This is your last junior year.
Last chance. Take him out.
Long-distance runners endure daily. We deny
ourselves the comfort zone because we know the
rush we get when the pain barrier is broken. That
euphoric daze after a track session when your
eyes cannot focus, your head pounds, and your
muscles burn in a sea of lactic acid. All you want
is to lie down and die. But you don't.
Eight hundred metres separate one of us from our
first national cross-country title.
We have returned to the noisiest part of the
course, and as we swing a right-hand turn
through the crowds, he lifts the pace again.
Impossible.
You run on, knowing that after this insane effort,
the organism that is your body becomes stronger.
So when I felt a niggle in my right buttock in
2004, I ran on.
He lengthens his stride, pumps his arms
backwards like pistons, and that grey singlet
begins to move into the distance. Let him go. You
can't match that. Too much pain. Not today.
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Nil Desperandum by Cathal Dennehy
F
our hundred metres
remaining. Somehow, I
have regained contact
with him.
There is a Cherokee saying: 'Listen to the
whispers, and you won't have to hear the
screams.' If only. Four months after I heard the
whispers, I was screaming.
It was on the
treatment table at Gerard Hartmann's clinic in
Limerick city. He plunged his thumbs into my
hamstring, pressing in further until I couldn't
take any more. I covered my face with my hands
and asked him for a towel I could bite on as he
tried to heal me. Back and forth, across the
hamstring, minute after minute after minute.
Worse than any race, worse than when I broke my
collarbone. Tears rolled down my cheek, not out
of some emotional decision to cry, but simply
because I was writhing in agony.
There is a theory in horse
racing that you come wide
when challenging a battling
horse. Take Brave Inca. You
don't look that horse in the
eye as you go past, you sneak
by on the outside, hoping he
won't notice.
Image: Alan Cowzer
The sight of Brendan O'Neill's grey singlet turning
the screw for the last 15 minutes has told me he's
a battler.
'Now you're finding out, Cathal, what they go
through, ' he said. 'Not nice, is it? Not nice at all.'
Go wide. I launch myself through the mud.
Though my arms burn with the effort, I pump
them vigorously, hoping my legs will follow suit. I
drop my mouth open and try to suck in some
precious air.
After this came four months of rest. It may sound
appealing to the average armchair athlete, but to
me the words resounded like a temporary death
sentence.
I think of the time spent alone in my room, icing
my hamstring and doing endless rehab exercises.
Thoughts of the screaming on Gerard Hartmann's
table return. I attack with fury. Though this final
burst is torture on my weary body, one thought
resonates in my mind: 'I've had worse.'
I did core exercises every day to strengthen the
muscles supporting the hamstring. But nothing
could support me. For four months, each day
lacked purpose.
Then there were the comments. 'If you were a
horse, you'd have been put down by now.' 'You've
got lazy.' 'Why are you so depressed? Cheer up
for God sake.'
Through the finishing chute, first. National junior
cross-country champion. My mother sprints over
and hugs me, one of the few who cared and
understood.
Very few truly cared. Even fewer understood. I'd
lie on the couch, turning from side to side, looking
at my watch, hoping enough time had passed in
the day to justify going back to bed.
Nil
Desperandum. Never despair. I despaired.
No celebration.
salutes.
No pumping fists or victorious
Just a satisfied grin to be somewhere I never
thought possible 15 months ago. A drop of sweat
rolls down my cheek, no doubt wondering where
its accomplice was.
The first run I was allowed was a humiliating 12minute hobble. I covered less than a mile and a
half. My chest was tight, lungs panting, and my
knees ached with the impact.
Only minutes later, as the gold medal was draped
around my neck, would a solitary tear make the
familiar journey.
My body had forgotten how to run. As I slowed to
a walk after 12 minutes, sweat streaming
relentlessly down my forehead, I added to the flow
with a few tears. I finally knew why running was
a minority sport. Gone was the feeling of effortless
cruise, replaced with a painful, uncoordinated
stagger. I gave up hope of ever competing at
national level again.
There I was, sweating
profusely after a run more suited to an overweight
smoker on New Year's Day.
Cathal Dennehy, an outstanding juvenile athlete
for many years, won the National Junior Cross
Country title at Dungarvan in 2006. He went on to
represent Ireland that year at the European Cross
Country Championships, and did so again in 2007.
He has completed a degree in journalism at DCU
and is currently pursuing postgraduate study
there.
In running, the consensus is that it takes two
days of training to make up for every one day
missed.
Emerald Athletic Club, Limerick
A quick calculation meant it would take me a year
of training to match my previous self. A year.
Fifty-two weeks of cold mornings and brutal
sessions. Sixty miles a week. Every week.
www.emeraldac.ie
That should teach my body how to run again.
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