It took him 30 years to figure out he could do anything he set his mind to
Born and raised in Montreal, Tony O'Keeffe knows what it is like to push himself to the absolute limit. As the Director of Cadets at the Royal Military College, he does not let his busy work schedule get in the way of training to accomplish his goals.
Tony is a motivated athlete with a mammoth goal in 2010: he would like to win the Race Across America (RAAM). In order to fully appreciate enormity of this goal, you have to understand what RAAM entails.
RAAM is an ultra marathon bicycle race across the United States, with a total distance of 4800 kilometres in roughly one week. There is no specified distance to travel each day, as the clock runs continuously from start to finish.
Last year there were nearly 180 racers from Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the U.S.
Each racer has a support crew that follows behind in vehicles to provide food, mechanical repairs, medical aid, and water. Because the riders bike continuously with little sleep, this event is in the ultra marathon category. Many competitors do not reach their end goal, and as many as 50 percent cannot finish the race due to exhaustion or other medical reasons. To finish this race is an immense accomplishment and testament to mental and physical strength.
Tony has competed in this race not once, but twice before. He is motivated to continue training to race for the third time by the fact that it is a race. The men and women who compete with him are single-minded and focused, and they want to win. The event is hard, and the competition is harder, but that is what draws him to such events.
The Montreal native admires people who work hard at whatever their passion is. His role models are different athletes that he has met with a similar, focused and committed mindset. He realizes the mental effort required to compete, but knows that he can do anything he wants to because he is mentally strong.
The most memorable experiences for him are during races. He won an Ironman distance race in Montreal, and that was memorable because it's where he grew up, and his entire family was there. Each one of the Ultraman championships in Hawaii has been memorable because his performance has been so consistent. He competed in the Ultraman four times, and finished in second place each time.
RAAM takes O'Keeffe's training and mental toughness to the next level. To compete in RAAM, it is financially expensive, and costs between $30-$50,000. Putting his team together, getting them to the U.S, and moving across the country with him are important, but expensive, components of competing in RAAM. More than that, it is physically expensive, because it takes some time to recover from the event. And there is a price to pay emotionally as well, because it is a long time to be by yourself, always moving.
There is only one way to get across the 4,800 km, and that is to ride. He has only one job to do during RAAM. It doesn't matter what the weather, wind, hills, mountains, desert, and other conditions are doing - O'Keeffe has to move. And that takes its toll.
He is currently planning the logistics of RAAM 2010, and there are a lot of pieces to get in order to be able to commit to this event.
As far as his training schedule is concerned, he is involved in strength and investment training. Everything that he does now is an investment in terms of getting his mobility and flexibility back to a competitive level.
Tony O'Keeffe has to get 10 people, three vehicles, and all the bicycling equipment together, along with a plan, to be self-sustaining across America. It is certainly a logistics challenge, and to put everything together while working at RMC adds to this challenge.
Training for him happens in the dark; he rides in the morning while it's dark, and then in the evening, after the sun has gone down, so he has to stay motivated in order to be prepared for the goal of winning RAAM.
The transferable benefits of training as hard as Tony O'Keeffe does to a military profession are many. Voluntarily submitting yourself to inordinate amounts of discomfort for the sole purpose of doing your best is something the Director of Cadets is very familiar with. In operation, as well as during garrison work, the people around him see that he is leading from the front. He works day in and day out, without exception and without fail, and that allows him to motivate others while he motivates himself.
