In 2020, Matt Knaggs was told he would be in a wheelchair within five years after receiving a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. This summer, he will embark on the 563km journey from Co Cork’s Mizen Head to Malin Head in Co Donegal for a Guinness World Record attempt.
From Ohio in the US, Knaggs’ symptoms first began in 2019 and consisted of numbness, tingling and sudden weakness.
At first, he blamed it on exhaustion due to a “busy time of life”. A doctor also passed it off as stress.
However, things progressively got worse. “I had nonstop symptoms. It was impacting my ability to work, to do anything with my family ... I was starting to believe that the rest of my life was going to be miserable.”
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While on a work trip in 2020, he suddenly lost the ability to walk. He went to the nearest hospital, where a number of tests were redone and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Knaggs (41) recalls that a neurologist told him “based on the damage you have and other patients I’ve seen like you, I would guess that you would be in a wheelchair five years from now”. He received the news like a “death sentence”, he says.
“My brain went immediately to: ‘I’m not going to be able to walk my daughters down the aisle’ ... I started giving up on things before I actually knew I needed to.”
He checked out some online support groups, and while they were “mostly” positive, he was put off by some pessimistic comments about how things will “never get better”. He decided to set up his own “positive” Facebook group called Running with MS, which now has over 1,100 members.
Through the group, he met his upcoming race partner, Colin Goodman from Belfast.
Goodman, also aged 41, was diagnosed with MS in 2017.
Speaking to The Irish Times for MS awareness month in March, he describes Knaggs as “the alter ego of me that lives in America”.
Goodman, who works in marketing, noticed his first symptoms while playing football with friends when changes in his vision meant he could see two footballs.
Like Knaggs, he thought his symptoms were due to him “burning the candle at both ends” with his job and young children. But MRI scans showed lesions on his brain and his diagnosis was confirmed.
Knaggs set himself the goal of running a half marathon after his diagnosis when he couldn’t walk more than a kilometre. He has since run a marathon a day for six consecutive days as well as ultra-marathons.
Goodman only started running after receiving his diagnosis but has since graduated to ultra-marathons.
Goodman first attempted to run from Mizen Head to Malin Head in July 2022 with his brother Andrew, but only made it to Limerick. They discussed the possibility of another attempt in summer 2027. But Knaggs’ wife Amber said: “Nothing is guaranteed so why are you waiting?” So the plan for this summer was agreed.
Knaggs and Goodman are doing the run to raise awareness and funds for charities MS Run the US, Multiple Sclerosis Ireland and MS Society NI. Their goal is to raise “100,000 something”, whether it be euro, pounds or US dollars.
The pair are running between 60km and 130km per day, and hope to complete the odyssey in 12 days. If successful, it would be recognised as a Guinness World Record for the fastest crossing of Ireland on foot by a team with MS.
Despite speaking to each other virtually daily, Knaggs says when he travels to Ireland for the challenge he is “going to meet Colin for the first time [in person] and verify that he’s not an AI avatar on the other side of the camera.”
Knaggs says he feels excited, nervous and scared at times, but his goal is to show people that a diagnosis doesn’t have to define you, even if it can be “scary and full of uncertainty”.
