Last weekend when the Irish Everesting record was broken twice - by Diarmuid Kavanagh and Ronan McLaughlin - Meath cyclist Graham Macken was also taking on the challenge and putting his own unique stamp on it.
A running and cycling shop owner and dedicated endurance racer with an eye for the most grueling events, Macken took on a ‘Double Everesting’ in his native county.
That is, he decided to ride two Everestings in a row,
thus doubling the minimum 8,848 metres elevation gain required to quality as an
Everesting ride.
He set out in the small hours of last Friday morning aiming for a minimum of 17,696 metres in elevation and determined not to stop until he had completed his challenge.
Macken, a 35-year-old married father of two from Navan,
Co Meath, is a veteran of the Race Around Ireland, in which he won king of the
mountains, and Race Across America (RAAM), which he rode in 2017 with fellow
Meath man Declan Brassil.
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He runs the Spun Cycles & Spun Run cycling and
running shop in Navan and is hoping to compete in the 10 hardest endurance
races in the world.
He had intended to compete in RAAM this year but when
that event was called off due to the Covid19 pandemic he decided to focus his
attention on Everesting.
And following the ‘go big or go home’ school of
motivation he set himself the challenge of a double Everesting; believed to be
the first time it has been done in Ireland.
The good news is he made it; starting at 4am last Friday on
the Hill of Tara and continuing to ride for an astonishing 51 hours 42 minutes
and racking up 17,968 metres of elevation gain.
Macken rode for 716.71km, burned 32,321 calories and averaged 16.6km per hour during his 250 passages of the same climb.
Macken’s mother, Barbara, was a founding member of the Navan Alzheimer’s Society and her endurance cyclist son did his ride last weekend for that cause; raising money towards the care of those with Alzheimer’s.
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