Carlow's Iron Man

You would be hard-pressed to find a sporting event that will push the human body to the limit the way in which the Ironman can.

A 3.8km swim followed by a 180km cycle and a full marathon may seem like an unfathomable challenge to many, yet for athletes like Stephen Murphy, it is one he truly relishes for so many reasons.

Indeed, the 55-year-old Carlow man, who only last month completed his sixth full Ironman challenge in Barcelona, delights in the extremely delicate balancing act required to see the body successfully negotiate such an arduous undertaking.

“There’s an art in Ironman” he explained. “If you go too hard in the swim, you’ll pay for it on the bike. If you go too hard on the bike, you’re going to walk on the run.

“Ironman would be consistency of nutrition, hydration and heart rate.

“If you control your heart rate, you can go all day long, but if you step outside that zone, you’re going to find yourself in trouble.

“For hydration, you need salts and you need to take in a certain amount of fluids every hour.

“You have to eat on the bike, and if you don’t eat on the bike, you’re going to walk on the run, because you have no fuel in your system.

“You really have to get all of these three things right in every area, so it really is an art.

“It’s one of the reasons I love Ironman and I’ll definitely do another one next year. I’ll keep doing them as long as I can” he insisted.

Murphy took on his first Ironman challenge in Barcelona back in 2018 when he was 49, completing the strength-sapping event in 11.58.

He returned to Spain to go again the following year and produced his best ever result of 11.18 while, in 2022, he completed Ironman challenges in Italy and Barcelona within the space of just two weeks.

Barcelona has become a regular highlight on Murphy’s calendar ever since, and in the 2024 edition of the event last month, he carded another very impressive time of 12.09, following that up with a very solid 4.05 in the Dublin City Marathon just three weeks later.

“I normally start the year out with Racing 795 and then the next one would be a double Olympic in Athy” said Murphy.

“I then do a half Ironman in Tyrone, and then it’s back down to Wicklow to do the Harbourman.

“After that I do my full Ironman, normally in September in Barcelona and then I finish off the year with the Dublin Marathon.

“I was always a runner for Laurence O’Toole AC and then I joined Athy Triathlon Club and I did an Ironman in 2018 with that club.

“When I came back from that, I decided that I was going to set up a club in Carlow, so I did that and we have Carlow Triathlon Club now.

“We’ve about 80 members and that club is going really well. We operate out of Laurence O’Toole for running and we leave from there on the bikes, while we operate the swimming out of St. Fiacc’s Swimming Club in Graiguecullen” he told The Carlow Nationalist.

While Murphy leads the way for the club in terms of Ironman participation, more and more members are starting to embrace the challenge.

Daithí Kidd from Carlow Town and Tullow man, John O’Toole have completed five between them.

What’s more, there has also been a strong uptake of the sport by women, who account for near to half the membership of Carlow Triathlon Club today, among them Sharon Harris-Byrne and Lara Dillon who have also completed the Ironman.

“Everyone who gets into triathlon, they eventually want to do an Ironman” said Murphy.

“There’s different levels of triathlon. There’s a sprint triathlon, which is a 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run. Olympic is then 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run. There’s the half-Ironman which is 1900m swim, 90km bike and 21km run and then you have your full Ironman, the big one.

“It’s really the way forward, because what happens is, if you’re running all the time, you’re going to get injured, whereas the three disciplines compliment one another.

“The swimming compliments the bike and the bike compliments the running because it builds you. It’s a nice way of doing things.

“Our sport is growing, but it is a small community. I went to Barcelona and I met 10 or 12 lads from Athy whom I did my first one with. We all meet in different areas.

“Everyone is very nice. They’d be helping one another all the time. It’s a different community, just so nice, because everybody has the one goal, and that’s to get to the finish line” he smiled.