Unsinkable: Alan Corcoran’s swim of the length of Ireland

Alan Corcoran swam the length of Ireland in memory of his father. He spoke to Jonathan Cowie about his experience.

What drives humans to take on endurance challenges? Athletes in many disciplines have pushed the boundaries of what is considered possible to accomplish amazing feats – from Alex Honnold free-soloing the 3,000-foot wall of El Capitan to Sarah Thomas swimming an unprecedented four-way English Channel solo. Challenging expectations and extending the physical and mental limits of what humans are capable of, solo endurance challenges can also be an opportunity to process big emotions and give meaning to life when faced with seemingly unsurmountable grief and tragedy.

Alan Corcoran is no stranger to either big challenges or personal tragedy. In 2011 Alan’s dad, Milo, suffered a debilitating stroke. As Milo worked tirelessly to recover, his son decided that he would run 35 marathons in 35 days to raise money for charity. On 30 June 2012, Milo stood “proud, alive, and free” under the finish line of the Waterford Viking Marathon to embrace Alan as he finished his 35th marathon. He had become the first person to run around Ireland’s coast. In his new book, Unsinkable, Alan writes of the “life affirming joy” he felt at the end of the charity adventure: “Dad had returned from the brink. My family triumphed over adversity.

A hard blow

Yet adversity wasn’t finished with Alan’s family. In the summer of 2016 Milo was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Just three weeks after his diagnosis, Milo died with his family around him.

“I’d never experienced pain and loss like the death of my dad,” writes Alan. “I wanted to suffer less.”

Ultra-distance running had helped him process his dad’s stroke, now he looked for a new challenge to help regulate his emotions and recapture a semblance of control over his life. Inspired by Sean Conway’s book of his length of Britain swim, Alan decided he would swim around Ireland.

Big challenges can be steep learning curves. After some research, Alan decided that a more achievable but still demanding goal would be to swim the 500km length of Ireland. It ticked all his boxes: he would accomplish something nobody had done before and it would be a fitting tribute to his Dad with the potential to inspire and raise money for charity. He started planning and training for the challenge.

“I returned to pool swimming at 26 after 13 years away from the sport – I quit my life-saving swim classes after primary school to focus on athletics and football,” says Alan. He hired Chris Bryan, Ireland’s top marathon swimmer at the time, who drew up a training plan for him to follow. Working a desk job in London, Alan had swam limited opportunities to train in the sea but followed his training plan at his local leisure centre. Over eight months he progressed from “nearly drowning attempting to swim one pool length in September to swimming comfortable marathon 10ks in the pool by April.”

In May 2017 Alan set off from the Giant’s Causeway on his epic 500km swim. Thirty days and 210km later the swim was called off, his safety boat sunk. It was the end of the adventure. Forced to admit defeat, he felt as though he had failed in his tribute to his dad. “I sobbed, got the long bus home, and returned to my career as a town planner,” he recalls.

Reignited passion

A year later, his passion for the challenge returned, sparked by an interview with his local radio station.

“I dusted off and got back to working on the logistics and pool training,” he says, determined to learn from the mistakes of the first challenge.

Standing on the Giant’s Causeway at the start line of attempt two in 2019, Alan felt ready to succeed. “I’d failed miserably on 2017’s attempt when my support boat sank. Now I had a 32-foot sailboat that I’d purchased with a £13,000 bank loan and savings. I also had a support kayaker for my second effort, my partner, Karolina. It was overwhelming to make the start line after all the obstacles. I felt ready to rumble.”

Alan’s first attempt had also been hindered by cold-shock response. “My reaction to the murderous cold and the fear and anxiety of being face down in deep waters exposed to wildlife miles from shore caught me off guard,” he recalls of his 2017 swim.” I struggled big-time with those aspects of open-water swimming. It was a steep and uncomfortable learning curve.”

Ahead of his 2019 swim, Alan worked with Dr Heather Massey of the University of Portsmouth to better acclimatise to cold water and reduce his cold shock response, following a punishing regime of cold showers, ice baths and winter dips in the Serpentine lake in London’s Hyde Park.

“I’d invested so much in achieving this goal and needed to make the finish line this time and do Dad’s memory proud,” writes Alan. Second time around, Alan was successful in his attempt, becoming the first person to swim the entire length of Ireland – while Karolina became the first Czech person to kayak the length of Ireland!

A new challenge

I am always interested in learning how an endurance athlete copes with readjusting to everyday life after a big challenge. With nothing to focus on, it can be difficult to knuckle down to the 9 to 5 grind. But since completing the length of Ireland swim, Alan has had a challenge of a different kind.

“I bloody loved writing Unsinkable,” he says. “A book sowed the seed for my swimming odyssey. Putting my experience out there for someone else to find and draw from is exciting.”

Alan had no agent or corporate deal to fund and manage his dreams. His work is proudly independent. Most were willing to write him off because he had no writing degrees or journalistic experience.

“It didn’t bother me when I began writing my books,” he says. “I wasn’t a marathon runner when I signed up to run 35 consecutive marathons, and I could barely swim when committing to swimming the length of Ireland. I took my writing and publishing as seriously as those feats. If anything, I invested more energy into creating my two books. The challenge’s enormity and vulnerability of sharing your warts-and-all experience with the public fueled the midnight oil and countless dawn writing sessions.”

Unsinkable is an emotional read, the grief for his father’s death still raw on the page. But at its heart it is a celebration of living, of what you can accomplish and the experiences you can have on the way if you give life a proper whirl. I ask Alan what advice he would give to someone who was contemplating a big challenge: “Be humble. Be consistent. Be patient. People often start things with great notions of themselves and then quit once they fall. There are no overnight results. You’re bound to suck at first. If your work is well-informed and consistent, progress is inevitable.”

Life’s whirl has now landed Alan in the Canadian Rockies, where he lives with Karolina in Canmore. Now he has completed such a grueling swim, I wonder if he ever wants to get in the water again. “I’m on the dirt most days, trail running and hiking, but I love mixing in swims around the awe-inspiring Quarry Lake when it’s not frozen solid,” he says. “I’m no longer doing high-mileage pool swimming, but I enjoy dipping in the Bow River with friends most weeks, keeping up the plunges through the extreme Albertan winters.”

Once a swimmer, always a swimmer.

Photos: Niall Meehan

Unsinkable is published by Tivoli and is available from Amazon and to order from bookstores.

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