Abbeyside fitness instructor and gym owner Mark McConnell completed a 24-hour hike last month to raise awareness for mental health.
He accomplished 42 ascents and descents of Crohaun Hill in the Comeragh Mountains in wet and miserable weather on Saturday, January 30.
“This year I set myself a goal that every month I would set myself a challenge to get out of my comfort zone and see how I got on. This was the first one, a 24-hour event up and down Crohaun. I actually went through a bad patch myself in December. I think it was just the accumulation of what 2020 brought. I got down for two or three days, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I don’t suffer from mental issues. I thought if I’m feeling like this, somebody that doesn’t have any mental health issues, there definitely has to be others out there. It was to raise awareness and highlight the fact that if you are feeling like that and you don’t usually feel like that, you’re not the only one and it’s ok. That was the motivation behind the 24-hour event. My partner just sat down and had a chat with me. It was just that talk, that little chat for five or ten minutes. That’s what I’m trying to encourage: talk to your partner, talk to one of your friends. It definitely does help. There are people out there that have your best interests at heart and wouldn’t like to see you go through that. Just talk to somebody, that’s the point I’d like to get across.”
With six hours to go, McConnell considered calling it quits. “I was soaked to the skin, I was freezing cold, my legs were gone, the pain in my knees, in my feet, in my hips, in my back, everything.”
He decided to push through the pain barrier. “Two days before the event started, two of my neighbours pulled up to the house, two brothers, and gave me money to put into the GoFundMe. They stopped to talk to me and one of the brothers has suffered from depression all his life. I remembered that conversation he had with me. If this man has gone through what he has over the last 50 to 60 years of his life, I can surely go through another six hours of hardship.”
McConnell has worked as physical trainer with Déise club and inter county teams. He believes that exercise is important during the current lockdown. "Try to get out, even if you can't run, go for a walk. Do these online Zoom classes, you can easily look up stuff on YouTube as well. Keep active, it will keep you focussed on something, it will side track you from the situation that we're in. As you go on training, you will get into it and you will start to enjoy it a lot more. Exercise is not a cure for mental health but it definitely helps and it makes you feel that little bit better."
Listen back to the full interview with Mark McConnell from Friday’s Lár Na Páirce.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/wlrfm/markmcconnell
