Radio documentary on Mayo athlete will air at the weekend

Frank Greally: Running Full Circle, a new radio documentary from Little Road Productions Ltd, will broadcast at 9 a.m. on Sunday (August 28) on Midwest Radio.

At an initial glance, Ballyhaunis native Frank Greally is simply inspirational. Now 71 years old, he held the 10,000-metre national junior record in athletics for nearly 52 years, competed internationally for Ireland, was the founder of the Irish Runner magazine and its editor for 37 years, is the Athletics Ireland ambassador for The Daily Mile, is the founder of the Remembrance Run that takes place in Dublin every November, has written two books and is also a songwriter.

However, behind all these accolades is the story of a struggle against depression and alcoholism, and how running and now walking have been his redemption.

In a one-hour radio documentary for Midwest Radio that will be broadcast at 9 a.m. on Sunday (August 28), we find out more about the man behind these many achievements and why he feels the need to show his gratitude for a life of more ups than downs.

Born prematurely in the Old Coombe Hospital in 1951, Frank was not expected to survive. His mother had already lost a daughter in a home birth back in Mayo so she made the lonely decision to travel to Dublin to give birth to Frank and brought him home to Ballyhaunis a few days later, travelling alone on the train with Frank wrapped in a blue blanket.

Tragedy was to hit the family again as Frank was only six when his baby brother Gerard was born – sadly, he only survived a few days.

Frank now recollects that Gerard’s death had a profound effect on him for many years and it was only in his later life that he fully came to terms with his passing. Like many Irish families who suffered a bereavement of a child at the time, Gerard was seldom spoken about, therefore not allowing the family the proper chance to grieve.

Early on in his life, Frank realised he had a gift for athletics and emerged as a prodigious talent in his native Mayo. Not long after, he set his 10,000m national junior record of 30:17 in Santry on an August evening in 1970. Incredibly, it took nearly 52 years for this record to be broken, making it the longest held running record in Irish history.

Selected shortly afterwards to run for Ireland at the World Cross-Country Championships in Cambridge, this led to him winning an athletics scholarship to the USA where he became one of the '70s Irish brigade distance squad at East Tennessee State, where he majored in English literature and journalism.

Unfortunately, Frank’s time in the USA was not what it could have been and he tried to work part-time for his upkeep while logging miles of training along with class time. Ongoing injuries and the immense pressure placed upon him as a young athlete miles from home led to the start of his battles with depression and alcohol.

Desperate to keep up with 1972 Olympians Neil Cusack and Eddie Leddy, Frank soon ran himself into the ground and his athletics career in the US was cut short due to injury. Not having the heart to tell his parents, Frank stuck it out in East Tennessee, without the aid of his beloved running to ease his troubled mind. Returning to Ireland and still battling his demons, Frank struggled repeatedly but still managed to become an accomplished journalist and founder of the Irish Runner magazine, which he edited for 37 years.

PEAK

However, his ongoing hidden struggles with depression and alcoholism came to their peak when Frank was in his mid-40s and living in isolation in a little rented cottage near Lacken, in the Wicklow hills, away from his wife and family. That night he believes were it not for the miraculous intervention of his friend Ray McManus, he might not be with us to tell his story of redemption. A slow but successful recovery at St. Patrick’s followed, along with a return to his first love – running, no longer with medals and accolades as the objective, but simply for the sheer joy of it.

Frank is passionate about the importance of exercise and activity as we grow older. In 2012, he founded the annual 5k Remembrance Run, an event that takes place in the Phoenix Park in November to allow people to merge running and a remembrance for those who have passed away. According to Frank: “We all have a primal need to be remembered even in some small way.”

A regular face on the annual Dublin Marathon commentary scene, along with being the Athletics Ireland ambassador for The Daily Mile, Frank has no desire to stop working as he enters his 70s.

To Frank now, it is all about giving back. In this one-hour radio documentary, Frank will inspire others to never give up, to keep going and to find a place for gratitude, and exercise, in their own lives.

The documentary was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television licence fee.