LIMERICK man Seán Hogan and Australian, Randolph Aguirre pedalled their way on to raise funds for Huntington’s Disease Association (HDA) on their London to Limerick 500 mile cycle.
Accompanied by Adriana Talotta offering support, the pair raised more than £2,000 for the association on their six-day cycle which saw them leave London, passing through Bath, Bristol and Wales before ferrying to Wexford and making their way to Limerick.
“Randolph works with Sweet Tree, where he helps care for people living with Huntington’s Disease. It is a disease people would be under-educated about, you don’t hear much about it,” said Seán. With Randolph adding, “once Seán, Adriana and I talked about the cycle, we all agreed to do it for the Huntington’s Disease Association and try to raise funds and awareness.”
Seán and Randolph are both active, being a rugby player and boxer respectively, both were fit to begin with, but wanted to test themselves physically with the challenge.
“We wanted to make a point of not training for the cycle, we are both active, but our sports are power based so the cycling was a tough challenge,” added Mr Hogan.
The toughest part of the journey for the Limerick-man was in Bath, England, describing the area as “exclusively hilly”, he says the two “developed a resilience” after that part of the journey. “We woke up the next day and we were ready to get back into it. It’s amazing how we had developed a resilience and durability – once you push yourself, you learn to manage the stress and emotion,” Seán told the Limerick Post.
With sponsorship from Setanta College, Thurles; Climpson & Sons Coffee and Sweet Tree, the two men were well supported on their journey, with Irish company Strip Snack donating a bike to Seán for the challenge.
“Donations are still coming in. Even when we were in Passage in County Waterford we stopped in a shop, a man noticed the logo of the association and approached us to donate €20 which was nice,” said Seán.
Randolph told the Post Ireland proved a tough test, it was “tough mentally, knowing we were so close and feeling fatigued”. Seán described their final break in Boher, Limerick as the point they realised they had “succeeded” saying, “when we arrived back at Poor Man’s Kilkee we had a great sense of achievement.”
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