I love telling people about the day I went cycling with Kathleen Byrne and Nuala O’Donoghue. We hunched our shoulders, huffed and strained as we pedalled through pelting rain. At last we stopped for a quick break, a swig of water and perhaps a bite of energy bar. Nuala turned to me. I paid attention: new to ‘hard’ cycling, I needed every scrap of advice or insight I could get. She leaned closer, and imparted this snippet of wisdom: “We’re not right in the fecking head, are we?”
Laughing your head off is a constant risk when you’re with the two firm friends, whether comparing notes after a triathlon or, as we do today, meeting for a cup of tea in town. They’re both attractive women, with a comfortable confidence about them that catches the eye. Yet no-one could, with just a quick glance, guess at the remarkable achievements these two average moms have racked up between them.
Kathleen decided to try triathlons herself after watching husband Ronan participate many times. “I reckoned, I’m standing here in the wind and cold, I might as well take part myself.” The next year, she braved a sprint tri for the first time. Nuala’s motto is “God loves a tryer”, and she decided one day to try tris. With a lot of help from kind Brian Cafferty, she did just that. The gals met, clicked, and Big Things started to happen.
One after another sprint triathlon joined their ‘done’ list, and personal best times inched up and up. Then 2010 brought an intriguing new idea. As part of their 75th anniversary celebrations, Cuchullain Cycling Club arranged a three-day bicycle trip from Mizen- to Malin Head. Never mind that the distance meant doing the cycling leg of an Ironman triathlon three days in a row, in fact, more than that. Kathleen and Nuala both signed up, and started to train.
Neither are top end cyclists. They are fitter than most of us, but their challenge in a triathlon is new personal best times, not a place on the podium. Yet it’s not only the prominent prize winners who achieve great things. The girls cycled almost every day for months: thirty kilometre sessions, fifties, seventies, hundreds. They shared laughter galore, but also tears of frustration, of pain, of exhaustion. There were times when they wanted to give up, when they couldn’t pedal another step. Yet with each other’s and their husbands Ronan and Gary’s encouragement, the support of their children, and help from friends in Setanta triathlon club and Cuchullain cycling club, they persevered. On the morning of 3 September 2010, along with thirty-one other cyclists, they tackled the long, long journey from the southernmost to the northernmost point of the island of Ireland.
They’re full of praise for their fellow cyclists, who helped with encouragement and sometimes hard words when the exhausted friends thought they couldn’t go on. It was what they needed to dig deep inside, and find the physical and mental strength to pedal every single yard of the almost 650km journey in only three days.
What’s next on the agenda? Kathleen and Nuala are just relaxing, resting after an extraordinary few months. But they’re already getting restless. “I’m getting back to training,” Nuala says. “The rest was good, but my life seems more organised when I train.”
Kathleen smiles when we say goodbye. “See you at the gym.” I’m sure I will.
