PD prepares for CrossFit Games

PD prepares for CrossFit Games

4 March 2020

A LEITRIM man is preparing to take on the world’s best this summer in the CrossFit Games in the United States.

PD Savage will represent Ireland in the five-day competition in Madison, Wisconsin, in July. He was unable to qualify for the event last year due to undergoing surgery.

Crossfit is a gruelling competition of a variety of exercises, weightlifting, high-intensity interval training, strongman pulls where competitors aim to do as many repetitions in the best time. 

While the 30 year-old hopes to represent his country to the best of his ability, he also aims to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research — a charity close to his and his family’s heart.

PD — short for for Patrick Daniel after his father — lost his mother, Bernadette, four years ago to a cruel and aggressive form  of dementia called Lewy Bodies Parkinson’s.

Mrs Savage was 56 when she became unwell and was working as an officer manager in PD Savage Associates, her husband’s structural/civil engineering business in Newcastle,. 

She died five years later after being cared for at home by her devoted family — her husband, son and three daughters, Anne-Marie, Catherine and Jennifer.

PD said: “The degeneration was so quick my mother wasn’t really aware of what was happening. It started off with her forgetting things, not knowing how to get home in the car and we thought it was just a bad period of depression at first.

“She literally went from being highly functioning in work and at home to not being able to drive and being in a wheelchair in six months, that’s how progressive the disease was.

“People usually die within five years of having this disease. I think Mum surpassed that because she was cared for at home instead of a home or hospital.”

A sportsman all his life, PD was supported by his mother in his love of GAA in particular.

A structural/civil engineer who works for his father’s firm, PD played for his local side, Liatroim Fontenoys GAC, from the age of 10 to 24. He also played for St Colman’s College, Newry, in the Macrory Cup and for Queen’s University in the Sigerson Cup.

He said: “My mother was always so encouraging to me in everything I did, picking me up from training and football all the time.

“I was definitely a spoilt child and was being lifted and laid by her, so it feels only right that I dedicate anything I achieve now to her. 

“I was in my last year at Queen’s when I found Crossfit. I did my first competition and then I got hooked. It’s only now I realise how exercise and fitness helped deal with what was going on with my mother’s illness.”

PD is the current All Ireland CrossFit champion and recently ramped up his training.

He said: “I’m working out twice a day, six days a week. That’s 90 minutes in the morning with two hours in the evening, not including warming up, stretching, etc.

“Essentially when it comes to the Crossfit Games, it’s a five day event. The more you can do, the fitter you are, the more volume you can tolerate, then the better you will do. 

“I have to put my all into it as I’m not in my early twenties anymore unlike a lot of the other competitors. It really has taken over my life at the moment and I guess it has really spiralled from initially being a hobby and slowly becoming more and more competitive.”

PD is halfway to raising the £10,000 he needs for being in the US for seven weeks leading up to the competition.

He hopes to raise a further £5,000 for Alzheimer’s Research through some sponsored events in his gym and by the sale of event tee-shirts.

To support PD, you can find him on social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.