Graham Macken to cycle two Mount Everests on Hill of Tara this weekend

With the Race Across America postponed until next year, Graham Macken needed a new challenge to fill the gap, honour his sponsors and to raise much needed funds for the Meath Alzheimers branch in Whistlemount day centre Navan.

"So I will ATTEMPT to cycle the elevation equivalent of TWO Mt Everests non stop!!" he says . "Roughly 250 reps of the Hill of Tara!! Starting Friday 4am and cycling through until I finish, hopefully around Saturday evening. Any cyclists who want to join in for a rep or two and make a small donation are more than welcome! We'll have buckets there for or you can follow the link and donate online!

"Let's help support a much needed centre in our area. Hope to see you all there!" Graham adds.

Earlier this year, Graham spoke to the Meath Chronicle's Jimmy Geoghegan, whose piece is reproduced here:

‘To push yourself to breaking point but hit the finish line, there’s no better feeling or reward’

Why do it? If Graham Macken had a euro every time he is asked that question he would be a wealthy young man indeed.

Why does this 35 year-old married father of two do it? Why put himself through the kind of torture that even those behind the Spanish Inquisition might have found too cruel; too far beyond the bounds of acceptability.

Why, for instance, do the Race Across America or RAAM? Why put his body through that gruelling 5,000km trek with very little sleep which he completed in 2017 as part of a two-man team and which he is doing again in June, this time solo? Why embark on the 2200km Race Around Ireland (regarded the toughest cycling event in Europe) which he also completed solo last August in 122 hours with less than three hours sleep, finishing with the ‘King of the Mountains' award?

After all, those events are not completed without a cost. The rigours of taking part in the Race Around Ireland left him with a rare, painful, debilitating condition known as Shermer's Neck, named after a doctor who completed the Race Across America in the 1980s and ended up not being able to lift his neck off his chest.

“It happens quite a lot. I think I am the ninth solo cyclist to ever get the condition in the Race Around Ireland but I was the first ever to finish the race with it," says Graham. "All the muscles in the back of your neck just top working and your chin is stuck to your chest and you can't get your head up to see where you are going."

Shermer's Neck usually means the end for cyclists; what Graham himself calls "a race-over type of injury." However this Navan man was not to be stopped. With the help of some friends he managed to continue on - and finish the race.

"The lads (his support crew) managed to fashion a belt around my chest and a bungee cord from the helmet to the belt. That helped to pull my head back up a little, it took the pressure off," he explained. "The headaches and that real stiff neck feeling lasted for about three weeks afterwards. I couldn't raise my head probably for those three weeks, I had to get physio treatment for it, it's very uncomfortable."

So why do it? The Navan native pauses for a while as he seeks to come up with an answer.

He points to an idea he got some years again, which has since morphed into something of an obsession - to complete the 10 toughest events in the world. The Race Across America is on that list - and the Race Around Ireland. There are other 'ultra' events he has also completed.

As a way of coming up with an answer he points to the kind of satisfaction you get from stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something way beyond the norm. That, he admits, has a magnetic attraction all of its own.

"To be able to push yourself close to breaking point but manage to hold it all together and get to the finish line, there's no better feeling or reward," is how he puts it. "The feeling that when others are quitting and going home you're still there, in the race. That proves a lot to yourself, that you can do it."

Then there is the joy of doing something relatively few people have managed to do. It's the kind of thing that motivates people on to climb Everest. "I suppose I would like to be one of the top Irish endurance athletes," is how Graham couches it.

Events like RAAM don't do much for his pockets but it is one of those adventures that can fill the soul. He knows what that term means like few others.

DEATH VALLEY

Brought up in Kilcarn, outside Navan, Graham Macken attended Cannistown NS and St Patrick's Classical School. For whatever reason he became fascinated with mind-blowing, energy-sapping feats of endurance. He qualified as a physio, set up his own practice in Trim where he still operates. He also runs a cycling and running shop, Spun Cycle & Spun Run in the local retail park.

His mother Barbara was one of the founder members of the Navan Alzheimer's Society and over the years Graham has more than done his bit in raising funds for that organisation's coffers. Considerable finance is also needed to take part in the Race Across America.

"It costs €4,000 to just enter the race, the crew is taking three weeks of their time to help out, that has to be factored in, there will be three cars, all the hotels, all the flights. We will need about €25,000 to cover everything, that sum is met by myself and sponsorship," he explains.

He says that the sponsors have been "wonderful" and with a few months still to go he is only about €8,000 short of the final sum needed. He knows what to expect from having completed the race in 2017. He is well aware of the kind of problems that can be encountered on the trek from California to the east coast.

"I went in the Race Across America in 2017 as a two-man team with another Meathman Declan Brassil, it was the hottest ever Race Across America, it got to 49.5 degrees in Death Valley. I got heat stroke the first night but you have to keep cycling. The third night Declan got food poisoning and the fifth night a crew member reversed the camper van into a wall. All the bikes were on the rack at the back and they were all destroyed except one so we had to pretty much limp home."

Then Graham gives another hint as to why he puts himself through sheer torture; what the reward is; the juice. "We were the first ever two-man Irish team to finish the race. It took eight days," he added.

TARA

In taking on the Race Across America solo Graham reckons he will be off the bike for no more than 90 minutes over each 24 hour period with just one hour of sleep over that span of time. It's all part of the challenge.

Graham and his wife Lauren have two children, aged three and one. Lauren's mother is Gwen Bagnall, a talented local actor while her husband is Brendan Bagnall who is Graham's chief of crew. Other members of the support team include Andy Reilly, Gary Chappell, Robert Farrell, Emmett McNeela, Ray Bagnall and Mark Sheridan. They will be accompanied by film-maker Patrick Byrne who will be turning Race Across America into a documentary, "warts and all."

Graham talks about how his wife Lauren is "incredibly supportive" and without her full backing it all simply could not be done. She understands his magnificent obsession and is prepared to back him all the way.

"Lauren has been around since the very beginning since I did my first triathlon six or seven years ago and she has seen me move on to this, doing the Race Across America as a solo cyclist," he says.

Before he sets off for America Graham will, he estimates, be doing around 25 hours training a week. He's already doing a sizeable chunk of that, including running up and down the Hill of Tara at night time with nothing but a torch strapped to his head to guide him around the energy-sapping ancient mounds. Tara, the 'Hill of Heroes.'

Beyond the Race Across America he is looking to complete the Kerryway Ultra a 200km non-stop race. Then there's the ominously-sounding 'Spine' a 418km non-stop run over the spine of the Pennine Mountain Range in England. That takes place next January when the snow is sure to be deep and heavy.

Sometimes Graham Macken asks himself why? Whatever the true answer he somehow finds the motivation to push himself, time and again, beyond the pain barrier. Way beyond.