Man completes 10 Ironman triathlons in 10 days a decade after suicide attempt

A 30-year-old man has marked a decade since he tried to take his own life by completing 10 Ironman triathlons in 10 days in 10 cities to raise money for suicide prevention.

Fergus Crawley, from Edinburgh, set out on the challenge to raise money for mental health charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) and, between April 30 and May 9, he swam 2.4 miles, cycled 112 miles and ran 26.2 miles in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Bristol and London.

Mr Crawley, who has raised more than £30,000 so far and named his project TENacity, was joined by 600 people over the course of the challenge and is believed to have set a world record.

He told the Press Association: “It was a really special thing to experience, having created a project which allowed people to speak to a stranger about their own challenges.

“The fundraising is cool, the world record is cool, but the actual tangible impact on human beings along the way, I think that is the coolest.”

He said endurance sport has taught him lessons that now help him reflect on his own mental health challenges after he attempted suicide in 2016 while at Durham University.

“All the little lessons, all the little messages and things that I’ve taken away are completely akin to how I would look at my own experience in the past from a mental wellbeing and suicide prevention point of view,” he said.

“For example, on day eight of the challenge, I’d written myself off. I did not see any way forwards, I couldn’t really figure out how I was going to be able to move on, but just by bite-sizing things down and relying on the people around me, knowing I could ask for their help, that allowed me to rebuild momentum.”

For Mr Crawley, a huge hardship was sleep deprivation during the challenge while travelling to a new city every night and consuming 8,000-10,000 calories a day.

“It was a pretty routine structure,” he said. “Chris, the project manager, would shake my feet every morning to wake me up and I would think ‘oh my goodness, this cannot be real life, not again’.

“Then I’d have my bagel with banana and honey, a black coffee, and start my swim.

“There were some nights where I was getting maximum four hours of sleep while on the move, which isn’t really effective recovery for an Ironman.

“From day six onwards that was when things started to get physically really quite tough and things started to really hurt.”

One of his biggest supporters is his French Bulldog Odie, who helped him rebuild confidence and find a purpose to recover while struggling at university.

During the challenge Odie was a “real reference point for that period”, and Mr Crawley said the dog helped him to push on towards the finish line.

“To have him there was amazing, Odie is a key part of the story and to have him there was a nice way of tying together the past decade,” he said.

It is believed Mr Crawley is now a world record holder for incorporating the most cities to complete a 140.6 triathlon distance on consecutive days.

He said that through the people who joined him during the triathlons, he learnt how important it is to recognise help is all around.

“The judgment and isolation that you may fear when you are struggling mentally is often coming from an illogical place,” he said.

“The 500-plus people who showed up as part of the project showed me that I know every single one of them could be a stranger you could rely on.

“There are people out there who are willing to help, and that doesn’t necessarily need to be anything more than just being there to listen or being present.”