From the pitch to the peaks

Long before Summit Sports Clinic existed, sport was simply how I grew up. Hurling, Gaelic football, and soccer all had a hold on me — training most evenings, playing most weekends, and picking up more knocks and niggles than I could count. That's really where this all started: a lifetime of being on the receiving end of sports injuries, long before I ever thought about treating them.

Coaching, not just playing

Sport stayed with me long after my own playing days shifted focus, this time from the sideline. I've coached underage and senior soccer with Bohemian FC and St Anthony's Youths FC, underage Gaelic football with Kilcullen GAA, and underage hurling with both Glen Rovers and South Kildare Shamrocks. Years spent coaching across three codes taught me something no course could: how differently bodies break down under different demands, and how much a good recovery and rehab plan actually matters to a young player's long-term relationship with sport.

Two surgeries, and a turning point

My own injury history isn't a footnote — it's the whole reason this clinic exists. Two surgeries and more injuries than I can count along the way, at various points enough to derail training, competing, and just getting through ordinary days without pain. What changed everything wasn't any single treatment — it was finally taking rehab seriously, properly, as a discipline in its own right rather than something to rush through to get back out the door. That shift didn't just fix an injury. It changed how I approach my body, my training, and honestly, my life.

That's the exact experience I bring into every session at Summit — not theory, but having lived both sides of it: the injury, and the long road back.

Running further than I ever meant to

Somewhere along the way, running took over. It started with road marathons — Dublin, Clonakilty, Longford, the Thoroughbred Marathon — and kept going, further and higher than I expected. These days it's trail and ultra racing that pulls me: Madeira Island Ultra Trail, EcoTrail, the Swiss Alps 100 (50k distance), Kerry Way Ultra, Run The Line, and a string of IMRA races through the Wicklow Mountains, including the Wicklow Way Half Marathon and the Halloween Half.

That kind of training doesn't happen without learning — often the hard way — how to manage load, respect injury, and know the difference between pushing through and pushing too far.

Qualified to back it up

Alongside the lived experience, Summit is built on real qualifications: a Sports Injury Practitioner qualification covering injury assessment, sports massage, and rehabilitation; specialist certification in ultrarunning coaching; and strength & conditioning training covering both individual athletes and team sports. The goal has always been the same — combine what I've learned the hard way as an athlete with proper, evidence-based training, rather than relying on one without the other.

Why Summit exists

Summit Sports Clinic comes directly out of that experience — as someone who's been through surgery and serious injury, a coach who's watched athletes of every age get hurt, and an ultra runner who has had to manage his own body through brutal training blocks and race days. I understand exactly what it takes, physically and mentally, to get back to full training, because I've had to do it myself, more than once.

Whether you're a GAA player carrying a niggle into championship season, a runner building toward your first marathon, or deep into ultra training and trying to stay in one piece — I've been where you are, from both sides of the treatment table.

Beir Bua.