My Plan(s)

My master plans

Hey there I’m Chris Duff and this is my life plan. Well actually I have two plans. Plan A is to make my living as a professional cyclist and Plan B is to be a journalist. (If I can’t be the story I might as well write it.) I guess, before I tell you how I intend to fulfil my goal(s) I should give you an origins story.

The life ahead of me didn’t always look bright and at times the future looked dark and even terrifying. I was, and guess I still am, a shy and socially inept person. I didn’t really fit in at school and wasn’t very popular as while other kids played football and PlayStation I played drums and read. I did like sport it just wasn’t the modish kind. I preferred long distance running swimming and above all cycling but just at a pastime level. I’ve been left perplexed recently, as I’ve been characterised as “intelligent, charming and not without humour.” That’s always nice, right?

I am from Skerries [where the Captain of the 2012 Dublin Football Team, Bryan Cullen, also calls home]. I, along with other inhabitants of this once intimate town, still like to believe it is the quaint fishing village it once was but Skerries has flourished quiet impressively over the years. I played Hurling, Gaelic and Soccer but was terrible at soccer however exceptional at the former two. For a few years I gave up on sport for various reasons, primarily illness. Before you ask I’ll tell you. I was diagnosed with anorexia and depression in 2008. I was fourteen. In 2009 I was very ill as a result of my anorexia and spent over a month in hospital. It wasn’t the first time or the last but it was the longest. One day while flicking through the channels on the small television in the corner of my hospital room I happened upon the Tour de France. It was stage 4, the team time trial round Montpellier. I was immediately transfixed by the fluid style of the sport. The instantly evident brutality of the sport, the high speeds, the precision of each move, it was poetry in motion and I was captivated immediately. After that I continued to follow the race day my day, stage by stage. I was amazed by the drama of the race, the super human displays of power, the team work, the sacrifices each member made for their team leader and the glory. I previously didn’t know cycling was a team sport but was left in awe of the team spirit and loyalty I think is unequalled in any other sport. Watching the winner of each stage cross the line, throwing his hands up in the air and scream with joy and seeing the pride on his face and the happiness of everyone around him, I wanted that. I was given Lance Armstrong’s book “It’s not about the bike” as a gift. I read it cover to cover and although I had anorexia and not cancer I was so inspired by Lance’s come back that it left me feeling compelled to do the same. This was my “moment of clarity”. Although I was still sick and wouldn’t be allowed exercise for a few months, even after I was let leave the hospital to recover at home, I started to work out how I could kick start my cycling career. I had received a tone of get well cards with money inside so I saved every cent toward purchasing my very first race bike.

After a few months of saving and convalescing I was ready to buy my first race bike. I had joined the Swords Cycling Club on the advice of my neighbor who was a member and whose son, Stephen Halpin, is a professional cyclist and spent a brief year on the An Post Sean Kelly Team. I started going on club spins every Sunday morning and I fell in love after just meters of pedaling with the group. The comradery of the group was inspiring; everybody looked after one and other. I finally felt like I had a place where I belonged. A few weeks later I entered my first race. It was a cold May evening. It was a club organised race on pothole riddled country roads and I was pumped, overly eager to impress and unaware of the pain about to be trust upon me. I was the youngest by at least six years from what I could gather. I was about half the size of the next biggest guy, at 6”2 and 58kg I bet some of the guys there could have crushed me with their calf muscles. I finished roughly fiftieth out of eighty. Thankfully it was a hilly course; otherwise I’d have been dropped after lap three of the 12km course which we completed six times. I was light therefore got up the hills with ease. My small frame also meant I could shelter from the wind behind almost anybody. I was exhausted, sore, cold, saturated in sweat but I had the biggest smile on my face. I loved every pedal stroke of that race. I had this overwhelming sense of exhilaration. I was sore and so depleted that I could barely walk but I felt wonderful and I decided I was going to do everything in my power to chase that high for as long as possible. I know fiftieth place isn’t anything to write home about, I wasn’t exactly please with that result myself, but I am a fighter I am a perfectionist I hate losing. I hate losing almost more then I love winning. I would improve on that every week, I was indomitable from that point. I set out on this journey of transformation; I was determined to be a pro-cyclist.

After a summer of racing and a visibly vast improvement I had people coming up and congratulating me at the end of races, people who saw me at the beginning and people who saw me at the end of the season. Some said to me if I kept going the way I was going, put on a bit more muscle weight and stayed smart, I could one day make the National Team. It was so humbling to see people I’d only met three months ago put that kind of faith in me. They gave me a sense of worth a sense of belonging and, something I hadn’t really had before, confidence. They also gave me a new goal, the Irish National Team.

A few years have passed and I have learnt a lot about cycling and racing. I’ve not won a race yet but I’ve come close. I’ve put it down to lack of experience and misfortune but at times I just didn’t have the legs on the day. I didn’t race in 2013, unfortunately. I had a rough summer. Although I am able to keep my anorexia relatively at bay my depression was effecting me terribly throughout sixth year and following a (thankfully) failed suicide attempt I spent the beginning of June in the hospital not doing my leaving certificate and reevaluating my life(for the second time). I’ve joined a new club, Dunboyne Cycling Club, who put a team into the RAS every year (Which is an eight day long race spanning across Ireland). I’ve bought a new bike that is crazy fast, aerodynamic and ultra-stiff for the upcoming season. I’ve been training harder than ever before and looking after my diet. I will race more than I have in the past few years. I plan on going to races all over the country. My aim for this cycling season is to impress my new club and get a few top five placing’s in races, even a win if I can make that happen and be considered for the RAS team within the next two years. That’s A

I never do anything without a Plan B I often have a Plan C and D too, so not having a Plan B for life is ludicrous by my standard. I’ve always had a passion for writing, I revel in it. I always enjoyed English in school and I excelled at it. Whether it was using my imagination to create a story or researching and gathering information to construct an essay I relished it. I was always reading and checking books out from the school library. Before I discovered cycling writing was the only thing I was good at or truly enjoyed so I wanted to pursue it. My uncle, Mark Comerford, works in the media and I really look up to him. I very seldom see, or get to chat with him because he lives in Sweden and is constantly busy but we get along very well. I always thought he was one of the coolest people ever so naturally as a ten year old looking for a role model and something to aspire to Uncle Mark was my man. This enthusiasm has stuck with me and is as strong today as it was nine years ago. I love telling stories. I grave that light in people’s eyes when I drag them into a story. I am a very curious person. “Why” is probably the word I say most of all. I’ve an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I want to be able to convey a story in a way that is entertaining, informative and, probably most of all, inspiring. I got publish for the first time this year, it was only the local paper but it counts (so I’m told) and the reaction I got from people around town, in school, from family and friends was encouraging to say the least. People literally used the words inspiring to describe my story and that was one of the aims of my piece. Knowing I achieved my goal at the time was an amazing feeling. Knowing I informed and helped people was brilliant and I want to do it again and again for as long as I can.

After being ill for so long and then relapsing in sixth year I missed a lot of school and ended up spending time in hospital again instead of a large room sitting my leaving Cert. I am currently studying journalism and photography in Marino College of Further Education and I hope to get into DCU next year and continue in my pursuit of becoming a journalist.

My aspiration to become a journalist out dates my desire to become a professional cyclist but the passion I have for cycling outweighs that of a journalistic career.