Belfast runner has been in fine form despite being diagnosed with a breathing problem called EILO

Stephen Scullion smashed the Northern Ireland marathon record in London last month despite struggling with a sore quadriceps muscle and tight hamstring in the cold conditions plus an irritating breathing problem.

The Belfast-born athlete clocked 2:09:49 but a few weeks after the race he has been diagnosed as having exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction (EILO), where the larynx narrows during exercise and impedes airflow causing shortness of breath and discomfort.

Scullion had been wheezing during some training sessions and races over the years and it was thought he might have asthma, but it turns out to be a completely different breathing problem.

Scullion says that "95% of doctors would have told you that you were wheezing and had asthma. But it wasn’t and the treatment is very different than asthma".

He adds: “Some people get surgery for it. Under exercise and stress your throat can close over and trying to get air through is like getting it through a tube that is being squeezed. At times it feels like the air is hurting my throat.”

Scullion says he has been given breathing exercises to do and various “coping mechanisms”. EILO is related to exercise and stress so part of his plan now is to reduce the latter as much as possible.

“There’s no real answer as to how this can affect or might affect performance. But I do a good job when a race is over of reviewing it and seeing what went right and wrong," he explains.

It certainly does not seem to have held up his relentless progress lately. His marathon best has improved every year since 2016 from 2:20:39 to 2:17:59 to 2:15:55 to 2:12:01 to 2:09:49.

Looking ahead to Olympic year, he says: “My job now is to train similar or better, to fix the breathing, fix the hamstring and to hopefully pick a race where there’s better weather.

“I pick the things that were wrong, fix them and then go and run faster. That’s pretty much what I’ve done for the past four years and had a minute or two-minute PB every year.

“I never sleep, really. There’s always something I’m working on to make the next race better.”

» Photograph by Mark Shearman

» Read more about Stephen Scullion in this month’s AW magazine plus this related article on our website here

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