MIND YOURSELF WHEN WHEEL STOPS TURNING SAYS CONOR

PAT NOLAN

BY

TO honour the memory of Dean Morris, Conor and Ruairi Mcnamee will undertake a virtual 200km cycle, roughly the distance from Rhode to Westport, on the exercise bikes in their fledgling Bear Trap gym. The cycle on December 18 is in aid of Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health. The two of them will resume training with Offaly next week, with Conor returning after prioritising his studies and setting up his business, C-bear

Performance and Nutrition, over the past year.

It’d be easy for them to kick the can down the road with fundraising and football rather than confront their grief, but their recent slump showed them that there’s no future in that.

“Go to a counsellor and talk about it properly,” Conor says candidly. “That’s what I need to do.

“For myself, from two weeks of being low, it’s important for people to keep an eye on what you’re doing and mind yourself.

“Like, I have a thousand things going on which is great until you get to a point where you do flatline and then no matter how busy you are you’re going to find yourself in a pretty dark place and getting it hard to get out of it, which is what I found.

“You’re just doing x, y and z, staying as busy as possible. This place has been great, football – busy, doing a masters – busy, busy, busy and then all of a sudden, boom, because I wasn’t actually minding myself properly.”

Time to mind themselves now, like they did with

Dean.

›› Visit www.gofundme.com/f/ conor-ruairis-rhode-towestport-200km-cycle to donate