Seamus confirms hopes of proving himself as Sligo’s ultimate warrior for third consecutive year
“However, I met Ray again at another event and he says to me, ‘you still never joined any club then?’. He went on to say, ‘I think you might have something’.
“I joined Sligo AC and that way I was able to get more information on how to train, groups to run with and make a lot more friends. It was from then that I started to really progress.”
And progress he did with Seamus going on to win the last two Warriors Run events – although he admits the second of those was up in the air at the peak of Knocknarea.
“Previous to my first Warriors Run win,” Seamus continued, “I’d been fourth, fifth and sixth in the years before that – 2022 was my first win where I led from start to finish.
“The second win last year was a lot tougher – I didn’t have it all my own way.
“It was a real battle on the mountain with some of the lads that would be mountain runners. I was leading before we got to the mountain and by the time we got to the top of it, I had dropped back to fourth position.
“However, by the time I got back down the mountain and on the road again, I was back in the lead. It was just a case of staying in touch with the mountain runners before getting down to where my strength is which is road running. Had I let them get away from me by the time I got to the top of the mountain, it would have been tougher for me to try and get another win.
“Maybe I could have caught them but it was important – mentally – for me to get on that road first.
“I reckon that’s where I won it when I was coming down the mountain.
“As for ‘am I going for three in a row?’, whether I’d won it or not last year, I would still be going back to run the Warriors race this year.
“Whether it will be a third successive win at the end of it, I don’t know. But I’ll be giving it a go anyway.”
Combining his work as an electrician with running hasn’t always been easy but Seamus states that having a great team behind him is a huge boost.
That team of course, being his wife and children.
He said: “I’m an electrician. With the rallying, there was no real practising with that. A couple of evenings a week, you might have to do a couple of things with the car but as time went on with the rallying, the cars got better and were more reliable.
“So rallying with pretty easy to juggle with my life as an electrician as it was more or less a weekend thing.
“With running, it’s a little bit more involved as I train six days a week.
“With the winter, you come home from work and even though the weather is wet, windy and miserable, you know you’ve gotta train.
“You come back from home and then you’re out again and it might not been until 7pm until you’re back at home sitting in front of the TV.
“That can be pretty tough but I’m lucky enough to good support from my wife Karen and my children Jamie (16) and Lauren (18). Thanks to my wife, I’ve been able to juggle things.
“My wife knows when I come in in the evenings what to expect. In, quick chat and maybe gone again. Maybe when the kids were younger, there might have been times when she would get them ready for bed which you kind of feel guilty about.
“But she knew what the running was for me but we always made time for family time as well.
“Weekends were good because you could get up early and run early on in the morning and when I got back, we all had the whole day together.
“Sometimes things didn’t go to plan and you might have had to skip a run – but that wasn’t the end of the world. The last few years have definitely helped my running get better.”
At 50 and still aiming for more Warriors Run glory, Seamus serves as an inspiration for those who feel that taking running up as a sport might be ‘too late’ for them. For those he offers the following advice.
He said: “There are a lot of running groups so I would get in with one of them. It’s never going to be easy starting out but never give up.
“Take the good days with the bad days and be consistent. Consistency has been the key for me.
“Get the training done – if you have a plan or a goal, stay with it and you will get there.”