Podcast #105 Gavan John Paul Hennigan Irish Adventurer Iditarod Trail Invitational 300 Mile Foot Race Winner 2020

There are Irish adventurer racers and then there's Gavan Hennigan, he had to deal with a lot of struggles in his teenage years and suffered badly at the hands of an alcohol and drug addiction, he went into rehab at the age of 21 and hasn't looked back.

Not only has he stayed clean and sober since then but he has gone on to take on some of the biggest and most challenging races on the planet, his latest being in March of this year which was the 350 mile Iditarod trail invitational foot race which cuts through Alaska in the harshest of conditions, not only did he finish it after having some pretty cool hallucinations but he won the race out right.

He has a long list of adventure races on his CV such as crossing the 700 km frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia, The Likeys 6633 Ultra which is a 566km non-stop, self-sufficient foot race, and the 500km Yukon to name a few.

His biggest adventure to date was to row solo across Atlantic Ocean as part of the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge. The 5, 000 km crossing took Gavan 49 days to complete and he finished on February 1st 2017 landing in Antigua after spending the entire time alone in his 20ft boat 'Doireann'. He left La Gomera in the Canaries on December 14th 2016. Not only did he win the Solo category of the race, breaking the race record for the concept class, but he beat all the other 3-man and pair boats, finishing in 3rd overall behind the 4-man boats recording one of the fastest times for a solo crossing.

I've decided to record a two part series, in part 1 we unpack his recent win in the (Ididarod) Iditarod trail invitational foot race, in part 2 we look back to the adversity that Gavan had to over come, the turning point and the journey that brought him to where he is today.

An inspiring story that we can all learn from, no matter how tough it gets in life there is always a path to greatness.

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