Duffy - Tick Tock Ten: A compelling blood sweat and tears account of competing in one of the toughest sporting endurance challenges in the world

Tick, Tock, Ten

By Gerry Duffy

To Jacinta.

You are always there at every step.

Thank you.

Acknowledgements

For me, this page is the most important.

To PJ Cunningham for his superb editing skills and ideas. This is our second ultra project together. Fortunately, I remembered a lot of what he taught me in 2010.

To Joe Coyle for his outstanding work and to Kathleen Ivory a secondary school art teacher and very talented artist who has prepared the course maps that appear in the early pages. To Tanya ONeill for her work on the book cover, thank you. To the proof readers of Tom Duffy Senior, Ken Whitelaw, Brian Ivory and Peter Wallace, all of you are part of my crew on this project.

To Steve, Eddie and Leigh whose names will shortly be understood by all who read this story. Thank you for putting on the big event and for watching over us all.

To the thousands who followed this event online and who sent such kind messages of support. Almost two years on, I still read them regularly.

To my family for their support in the journey that was this ambition.

A special word for my exceptional crew of seven who travelled to England Jacinta, Brendan, Ken, Doug, Jarlath, Dor and Enda. You know why you are mentioned here and soon you the reader will too.

To everyone named here, thank you all.

Prologue

This book narrates the tale of a sporting ambition. If you consider it slightly extreme, well join the club because I do as well.

One of my passions over the past several years is long distance running and ultra triathlon events. The longest one day event in triathlon is an Ironman event or iron distance triathlon. With a cut off limit of 17 hours, competitors are required to:

Swim 2.4 miles (3.8km)

Cycle 112 miles (180 km)

Run a full marathon of 26.2 miles (42.2 km).

It is not for the faint-hearted.

This story is about an event with the term DECA at its foundation. A deca iron distance triathlon is one where the competitor must complete an iron distance triathlon each day for ten consecutive days. Extreme in every sense perhaps.

It involves a total of:

24 miles (38km) of swimming

1,120 miles (1802 km) of cycling

262 miles (422km) of running.

For our Irish readers the swim, cycle and run is the equivalent of swimming from Dublins city centre to Drogheda in County Louth, of cycling from Dublin airport to Malaga airport in the south of Spain as the crow flies and the run is the equivalent of covering the distance between Belfast and Cork.

In a European context, it equates approximately to starting in Dover on the south east coast of England and swimming across the English channel to France, cycling from Le Havre all the way down through France before crossing into Italy and travelling to Naples in the lower west coast of that country. From there you start running and dont stop until you reach the Ionian sea at the southernmost part of the Italian coastline.

In the following pages, I will share with you a tale of ten days in June 2011, when along with a small number of likeminded individuals, I competed in the first ever staging of a deca iron distance event in the UK.

To give you a visual insight into what was involved, map drawings of the course that we competed on each day have been included.

In researching this book, I came across a statistic which stated that more humans have been in space than have completed a deca triathlon. At the time we undertook this challenge in mid-2011, approximately 65-70 people had finished one.

This is the story of how I, along with 19 others, attempted to join that illustrious list.

DAYONE

CHAPTER ONE
Were Almost There

Avon Tyrell, Hampshire, England

Friday, 3rd June, 2011

05:45am

Walking down towards the lake on Day One was a strange, almost surreal experience. This moment had heavily occupied my thoughts for over eight months. Now it was a reality. Given that there were only 20 competitors, the crowd of well-wishers and event crew was small in number, perhaps 40 in all.

It was hard to describe what I was feeling. By now any pre-event nerves had scattered like the ripples on the water that were being created by waking ducks as we approached. I was very excited in the lead-up to the event. Now the waiting was over and we were finally ready to go, after more than five months of specific training and 186 different workout sessions since a cold January beginning.

Some might have an opinion that we were walking towards a crazy ambition, but I felt incredibly alive. After all, extreme sports is one of the things I love and long to do. An early morning summer sun was gifting heat rays to add to my buoyant disposition.

I felt really strong.

Having a crew member of the calibre of Brendan Doyle at my side for the opening three days of effort, added both confidence and resilience to my mindset. I did feel that I had trained my body as well as I could, but knowing I had a great back up crew of seven, gave me added assurance.

Brendan was coolness personified. It was like having Clint Eastwood as your co-pilot; a rock of strength and support in every respect. Running and extreme sports is in every muscle fibre of Brendans six foot frame. I think I even saw a hint of jealousy on his face as he helped me into the wetsuit that first morning.

If Brendan reminded me of one Hollywood icon, then Steve Haywood, the event co-organiser, reminded me of another Tommy Lee Jones. As he began the first of 10 roll calls, Haywood commanded respect and authority in the same breath. At 5:50am he cleared his throat and demanded attention. 20 names were called out and twenty voices replied here. He made eye contact with each and every one.

From then on, I would use this image as a motivation every day. If I was having a low moment at any time, I would visualise Steve at the lake the following day, calling out our names. My one goal everyday was to be one of the lucky ones that would reappear day after day dressed in a wetsuit for the next days test. That would mean I was still in this event. There could be no firmer evidence.

At 5:55am we stepped into the water for the first time. It didnt feel cold. We hardly needed wet suits, the water an almost balmy 19 degrees celsius. I submerged and opened my eyes keen to see what lay beneath but nothing but darkness greeted me. If there were any creatures lurking below, they would have to make physical contact to make their presence known.

After three minutes of warming up and ensuring my goggles were watertight, I was ready.

Just then Steve shouted two minutes.

I looked around me. Everyone was ready but Steve was the ringmaster. We dropped to our knees keen to gather our thoughts in concentration. Such was the shallowness of this part of the lake, we still rose high above the water line.

One minute.

All of us were experiencing different emotions. I could hear short nervous breaths from some, whilst others held their breath before exhaling heavily. As I stood half-submerged, I thought of what lay ahead. That lasted for less than two seconds. After all, I hadnt a clue.

Thirty seconds.

The last half minute felt like an hour. Only a bird alerting its family to our gathering below, broke the deafening silence. An awkwardness developed among the athletes as we nervously avoided eye contact.