‘I feel like I got a second chance and I’m not going to squander it by just living a mediocre life’

Gavan Hennigan (35) is an extreme environment athlete from Knocknacarra, Galway who is about to row, solo, across the Atlantic. This year he has already finished second in the 500km Yukon Arctic Ultra running race and also completed, in 17 days, a 700km trek across a frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia.

Q: How did you first get into adventure racing?

A: I’d played a lot of sport when I was younger and had been a swimmer, but then I spent a few years getting drunk and stoned and barely went outside.