How Running Saved My Life: From Blood Clots to Resilience

The Fall Before the Rise

In September 2022, I was preparing for the biggest challenge of my life at the time: my first full Ironman. It was also my first triathlon. I was two weeks out from the race, balancing long hours of training with even longer hours as a trainee solicitor in one of Ireland’s top law firms.

Day 4 of running the length of Ireland

Life was full: intense, structured, and seemingly in control.

Then, without warning, I was hit with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in my leg.

The pain was so severe I could barely walk. I was hospitalised, placed on blood thinners, and sent home with crutches. I remember hobbling around in disbelief. I had looked after my body for as long as I could remember: no drinking, no smoking, years of disciplined training. I did not understand how this could be happening. It felt like my body had betrayed me.

But I refused to let it define me. Days before the Ironman, I was able to walk somewhat normally. So, against all odds, and with a great deal of internal resistance, I decided to race the 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run.

And I finished it.

I thought that was the end of the ordeal. In truth, it was only the beginning.

When Your Body Fails, Your Mind Follows

A couple of months later, I was away in the mountains when I felt it again, but this time in both legs. By then, I was already on blood thinners. The likelihood of clots forming again, let alone in both legs simultaneously, was incredibly low. The panic that surged through me was instant and overwhelming. I could not breathe. I could not think. I was convinced that this was it.

That night, alone and far from help, I sat with a very real possibility: that I might not wake up in the morning.

So I wrote a letter.

Not because I wanted to die. I didn’t. But because I was afraid I wouldn’t get the chance to say what mattered most. I was not ready to go. I was not ready to leave words unsaid. I wanted my family to know what they meant to me. I wanted my friends to know. And I wanted to make peace with the part of me that had always held back, that had always played it safe or postponed dreams for later.

In that moment, all the noise fell away. There was no room for ego or performance. Just clarity.

Day 1 of running the length of Ireland

Anxiety Behind the Mask

After that second incident, my external world kept moving. I kept working, training lightly, smiling in the right places. But internally, I was crumbling.

For months, I could not sleep. I was afraid to close my eyes. I lived in a state of hyper-vigilance: scared of lying down, scared of silence, scared of stillness. The anxiety crept into everything. Work lost its meaning. Conversations felt flat. Even training, once my sanctuary, felt like a fragile ritual. My identity as an athlete, a professional, a functioning adult felt like it was falling apart.

But I masked it well. I’ve always been good at pushing through.

What I did not realise at the time is that pushing through is not the same as healing.

The Moment It Turned

It wasn’t dramatic. I did not have a lightning-bolt breakthrough. It was weeks later, lying awake once again, heart racing at 2am, when a quiet thought surfaced: “I can’t live like this. I won’t be a victim to my circumstances.”

I did not know what to do yet, but I knew I had to reclaim agency over my body. Not to dominate it, but to partner with it again. To rebuild trust.

That is when the idea came to run across Ireland.

From Breakdown to Breakthrough: One Step at a Time

I had never run an ultra. I had completed one marathon in my life. But something about this idea, 555km in five days, felt right. Impossible, yes. But necessary.

I trained myself from scratch. I didn’t have a coach or a team. Just a belief that if I could take enough small steps, if I could prove to myself that I still could. Then perhaps the fear would quieten.

In October 2023, I completed the run: 570km in 5 days (a few detours made it even longer than planned). I slept a total of 7.5 hours over the entire duration: 2 hours per night for the first two nights, and ten-minute naps every 30-40km after that. It broke me down, but it also stitched something back together inside me.

At the 500km mark, I had to duct tape my ankle just to be able to finish. Every molecule in my body wanted to stop.

Extreme – yes, but I saw every obstacle that came up as an opportunity to prove to myself that I will not be a victim to my circumstances.

From Proof to Pattern: 50 Marathons in 50 Days

Two months later, I ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days. Not to impress anyone. Not for social media. But to remind myself that I had overcome what once felt impossible.

During week one, my knee gave in. On week two, my hip followed. On one occasion, I had to hop the final 7km on one leg because of the injured Achilles. Every day, I asked myself: “Can I go just one more step?”

And every day, I did. Not because it was easy, but because I had made peace with discomfort. I had decided I would not stop unless I truly could not.

That has become my definition of resilience: not never failing, but eliminating the regret of not trying.

I committed to keep going, not recklessly, but with self-awareness. I was never chasing pain. I was chasing peace.

What This Taught Me About Mental Health

I used to think resilience was something you were born with, a character trait. I now know it’s a skill. A muscle. Something you build when you choose to face discomfort with intention, again and again.

I also learned that mental health does not always look like crisis. It can look like high performance on the outside and quiet chaos within.

Most of all, I learned that we all have far more in our tanks than we believe, but we will never discover it if we let fear write the script.

Why I’m Sharing This Now

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I know there are people reading this who might feel broken, afraid, or disconnected from their own bodies or lives. You may not be able to run across a country right now but you can take one more step. One more honest conversation. One more breath.

You don’t have to be perfect to begin healing.

You just have to begin.

This is not a story about ultra-endurance. It is about reclaiming control, in whatever form that takes for you.

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The Path Forward

The greatest irony of my journey is that my physical breakdown revealed a mental strength I never knew I possessed. My DVT, an experience I initially saw as my body’s betrayal, became the catalyst for my most profound transformation.

Today, when I work with individuals and teams on building mental resilience, I don’t talk about “pushing through” anymore. I talk about listening. About honouring both our limits and our limitless potential. About the courage it takes to be vulnerable and the strength that emerges when we face our fears instead of running from them.