BLISTERS and burn-out now conquered, football fanatics-turned long-distance walkers Chris Kirk and Gareth Brown are this week resting up after hiking more than 200 miles for Sport Changes Life foundation.
The pair, who took off on their five-day 'Stride the Stadia' quest last Tuesday, battled long lonely roads, often in the dark, in their quest to visit every Irish Premiership ground - starting and ending with their beloved, Glentoran.
Coping with pain, strain, rain - not to mention heavy rucksacks - their efforts aim to raise £20,000 for the charity which champions disadvantaged young people in sport.
Physical preparations were stringent, but for Belfast father-of-one, Chris (35), his gearing up for the daily walks - the longest being a leg-breaking 58 miles - encountered a nasty set-back when he contracted Covid a few weeks before 'Launch Day'.
"Things were going great and then about three weeks before we were due to set off, I got Covid and it wiped me out for nearly two weeks," he says.
"It did knock me off my training schedule, but when I got the all-clear to train, I did a 14-mile walk, followed by an eight-mile run and was completely fine.
"For 14 days I couldn't do anything - then my wife got Covid three days later. We have a three-year-old daughter in the house, so we still had our 'mummy and daddy' duties, but we just had to get on with it. I still haven't got my taste or smell, back but everything else seems to be back to normal."
Covid aside, less serious concerns such as blisters were a painful obstacle, but the goal of raising cash was the ever-present motivator for Chris and long-time pal, Gareth, whose on-the-road banter kept them resolutely placing one foot in front of the other when things got tough.
"We kept each other's spirits up along the way," says Chris, who works in car bodywork and first took up hiking during the pandemic as a means to keep physically active as well as looking after his mental health. He started with a walk from Belfast City Hall and continued all the way to the top of Slieve Donard.
On that particular expedition, he was joined by Gareth and 20 others, raising a grand total of £18,000 for east Belfast charity, Survivors of Suicide.
"Last year, I started that walk to help people who had already been impacted by suicide, but this year, for Sport Changes Life, I see it as helping people before they get to that point – as a sort of preventative measure," he says.
"Sport Changes Life acts as an unofficial intervention because they are engaging with young people at an early stage, getting them focused on sport and all the benefits it brings. Then, if they do get into struggles later on, they are hopefully more resilient because coping mechanisms and positive attitudes have been built up."
If he speaks with some authority on the subject, it is due to ongoing battles of his own with anxiety and depression and also being impacted by the suicide of a close family member a year ago.
The tragedy prompted Chris to raise money for the Surviving Suicide charity but, as he soon found out, he was not alone in coping with the singular pain felt when a close family member suddenly takes their own life.
"During the pandemic last year, there seemed to always be someone in our WhatsApp friendship group who had been impacted by suicide," he confides.
"I remember there was one particular period when Covid deaths had lulled a bit, dropped to seven, and in that same time period we knew of 35 suicides in Belfast.
"Initially, I was just going to do the Slieve Donard walk on my own, but then other people kept joining because of their uncle, their brother, their cousin, their nephew... there were so many people at that stage touched by suicide that everyone felt they needed to walk a mountain."
Although never having felt suicidal himself, Chris first experienced anxiety and depression when in his teens, "but didn't really know" the reason for his feelings.
"I was just aware of days when I was 'up' and days when I was 'down' - I couldn't understand it," he explains.
"I thought maybe there was something wrong with my hormones or something. Then, about four years ago, the feelings were becoming overwhelming, so I went for counselling. I've been on medication in the past, but I'm not on it any longer, so that's a good thing.
"It is predominantly anxiety that affects me - it overruns me so much that I get tired, so drained, that I get into a depressive state because I'm so burned out."
One of the triggers, he believes, could have been a self-inflicted pressure to attain "100 per cent" in everything he did.
"I did okay in school and got good results, but because I wasn't attaining 100 per cent, it was like failure to me," he says.
"I suppose that is maybe why I work with cars now - I can just 'switch off'."
More than anything, football has been his saviour, with sport in general instilling core values of respect, teamwork and motivation while growing up.
"One of the reasons I love football so much is the camaraderie and I don't think it is a coincidence that when I stopped playing – due to my work schedules – my mental health worsened," he says.
"There is a loss of companionship, of being around your friends and being able to talk freely and have a bit of a laugh and that is as important as kicking a ball.
"A lot of guys in their 30s can feel the loss of that because they maybe feel a bit too old to play football. In England, there are 'over-35' leagues and it keeps guys playing and keeps them together. It's just a release valve – a couple of hours a week where you are getting away for that all-important release."
So, with a passion for football and new-found love of hiking, when it came to striding out for a good cause again, it seemed a 'no-brainer' to include Northern Ireland's top football clubs, sleeping out in clubhouses or camping on the grounds along the way.
Chris and Gareth's route, which took them from Belfast to Portadown, through Warrenpoint, Dungannon, Coleraine, Ballymena and Larne, before finishing back at Glentoran FC, comprised one million footsteps between them and was equivalent to eight marathons in five days.
"It has been a challenge and on some of the days we were walking with maybe as little as three hours' sleep," says a triumphant Chris.
"On day four, especially, we were both really, really tired and were just sort of trailing ourselves from Coleraine across to Ballymena, but the support from everyone has been amazing.
"We started out with this crazy idea and now we have been named ambassadors for Sport Changes Lives. It's been the greatest walk of our lives."
To donate to Chris and Gareth's marathon venture, visit Stride The Stadia Go Fund Me page or text STRIDE, with the amount you are donating, to 70085. Stride the Stadia challenge is on Facebook and Twitter - more information at sportchangeslife.com
