Dentistry in Trinity is my Olympics Inez Duane, fourth year Dental Science student and Irish national delegate to the European Dental Student Association, tells Trinity Today about the serious health condition that ended her athletics dreams and why she feels ‘incredibly lucky’ to be in Trinity I nez Duane, then aged 16, began her usual warm up jog for athletics training around The Curragh in Kildare. After a glance to her new heart rate monitor, something seemed wrong. After a second look, she was convinced it was broken and jogged back to consult her coach. ‘Even in Junior Cert science class, you learn that your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age,’ says Inez, ‘mine was at 230, doing a slow jog.’ A Leinster and Irish medalist sprinter, who competed for Ireland at an international level, Inez was also academically gifted. Her knowledge of heart rates however came through personal, tragic experience: a few months previously, her father had died from a heart attack, having suffered a serious heart condition for the previous decade. Devastatingly, after a gruelling 17 hours in A&E following her ‘slow jog’, it was confirmed that she too had a heart condition, and other tests suggested further complications with her lungs and stomach. Inez went from running 200m in 25 seconds to being warned not to walk upstairs too quickly. This wasn’t just calamitous for her health and her athletics career, it also threatened her academic future. ‘I was seven when my Dad first had a heart attack, he couldn’t really work and my Mum had to do a lot of looking after both him and us. There was not a lot of money and unfortunately my Dad got sicker so we had to move house and opt out of school trips and things, but we were lucky because we got a lot of opportunities through athletics and music.’ Athletics was more than just a hobby, it played a pivotal role not only in Inez’s life, but the life of her parents. Both parents were talented athletes - they met on the running track - and also gifted artistically: ‘My Dad and his whole family are big into music and my mum is a brilliant painter’. Inez and her twin sister, inherited these talents. ‘We both couldn’t get enough of music, we passed all our music grades, aged 13, and got into the Dublin Youth Orchestra. I learnt many instruments because I could never decide on just one! I now play the piano, violin, trumpet and guitar.’
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