David Gillick has revealed how he exorcised his demons by participating in the new series of RTE's Ultimate Hell Week - The Professionals.
Gillick, 39, has established himself as an athletics commentator after a successful running career - he won gold and bronze for Ireland in the European indoor championships - ended in frustration due to injury.
This summer, he embraced the opportunity to take part in Ultimate Hell Week with a number of other former sports stars and celebrities.
"The hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it's one of the best things I’ve done," said Gillick, who is taking part for Friends of the Coombe.
"It challenges you on so many different levels - physically, mentally, emotionally, all that good stuff. Some epic stories from it.
"I can’t underestimate how demanding it was – no sleep, you’re wet and you’re cold, covered in muck and s**t and everything else and that just keeps repeating itself.
"In different ways, it’s relentless. The 400m is a tough event, you go to some dark places, you’re puking and getting scraped off the track, but this is different.
"In athletics, recovery is an element of performance, but you don’t get that in Hell Week.
"One of the reasons I did it was I wanted to see if I could go back to that place, to challenge myself to that level when I was performing.
"My own career didn’t end the way I wanted it to, so I probably had a few demons that I wanted to put to bed.
"By putting yourself well outside your comfort zone, jumping out of helicopters, all that stuff, when are you ever going to do that?
"Yes, it was terrible and horrendous at times but at the same time, a really good thing to do."
The series started last night and, with Brian O'Driscoll's 'After The Roar' documentary on how he dealt with the end of his career airing this week, the spotlight is on how sports stars transition to life after retiring.
Gillick is still dealing with that transition.
He explained: "I wasn't prepared in the slightest. I packed it in when I was 30 - so nine years ago I hung up the spikes and I said, 'You know what, I'm done with this'.
"I was injured and was fed up with it, I wasn't making any money. All my mates were probably 10 years into careers and I'm starting from scratch, thinking, 'What am I going to do and who am I?'.
"You can never replace that buzz of winning a race or hearing Amhrán na bhFiann on the podium, or running in front of 60 or 70,000 people.
"So you've got to accept where you're at - that you're in a completely different phase of your life. That can take time.
"But the way I deal with it now is I have good people around me.
"I'm not ashamed to admit I still go to a counsellor and still talk about these things because it's a huge part of my life and always will be.
"My advice to all people who have had massive change in their life, go and talk to someone.
"It's made me a better person, it's made me more resilient. Even going back to Hell Week, it kind of stood to me at various times."
"Motive TV, who have produced it, apparently they had a nice budget so could bring in a few more helicopters and all that craic, make it look pretty cool.
"It was great. It was a good crew of people I was doing it with, sports people and others from different areas, some very tough people and some very strong characters, physically and mentally."
* Ambassador David Gillick was in attendance at the launch of European Week of Sport 2022, in partnership with Sport Ireland. For more information and to find an event near you, go to - www.sportireland.ie/europeanweekofsport
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