Mayo garda completes gruelling 10 hour challenge to raise funds for Down Syndrome Mayo

Irish Independent

03-06-2025

And that wasn't all of the physical exertion which James Carty did at the week-end.
For five kilometres he also yanked two pulleys on a SkiErg, undertook five kilometres of rowing, 400 metres of burpee broad jumps, half a kilometre of lunges, one kilometre carrying two 24kg kettlebells, half a kilometre lunging with a 20kg sandbag and a 6kg ball walloped off a ten-foot-high target 500 times and all in just over eleven hours.
That is how far James went to fundraise over €17,000 for Down Syndrome Mayo over the weekend.
James is chairperson of the organisation, which provides services and support to over 100 families of people with Down Syndrome throughout Mayo.
The Knock native was inspired to undertake the challenge by his youngest daughter Iris, who was born with the condition in on May 11, 2021.
'It's just surreal, is the word,' James told the Irish Independent after completing the gruelling challenge.
In the surrounds of Crossmolina's North West Fitness Academy, cheered on by dozens of friends, family members, locals and flanked by fellow fitness fanatics, the 46-year-old Garda sergeant tested his physical and mental fortitude with five back-to-back Hyrox simulations.
The concept of Hyrox originated in Hamburg, Germany, and involves a series of physical challenges broken up by solo runs.
For James, this meant five eight-kilometre laps of Crossmolina followed by an array of pushing, pulling, carrying and jumping. He began at 7.40am on Saturday morning. By 6pm that evening, he had burned over 8,000 calories.
'It was an unbelievable day, an unbelievable experience. The support from everybody is just amazing,' said Mr Carty, still suffering from mild Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and slight brain fog.
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Though the task of completing this gargantuan test of endurance rested on his shoulders alone, Mr Carty was joined in body and spirit by hundreds of people throughout the day.
This included over 100 fellow Hyrox athletes, members of Down Syndrome Mayo and their families, members of North West Fitness Academy, and gangs from M Fitness in Belmullet, Evolve Fitness in Donegal, Crossmolina GAA and Killala GAA.
Working under his coach, Jack Curtis, James spent months preparing for the challenge. However, expectation and reality were still quite different.
'I got to the third one and I thought that was enough, but I just kept going,' James laughed.
'It was tough, it was. I look back on it and I did a lot of hard training, so I did. It prepared me very well, it really did.'
The statistics back it up. In October 2023, Mr Carty completed his first ever Hyrox in one hour and 44 minutes.
On Sunday, he completed his fifth and final Hyrox in 12 hours in one and 48 minutes.
'It was kind of crazy to think that the training had brought me to that level,' said James.
The nauseating physical challenge alone made it an unforgettable weekend. But one moment will always stand out for James.
'I had said it to [my wife] Ciara a couple of days beforehand, I said 'When I get to the last run, have the push chair, the buggy read, Iris is going in it, and I am going to push her. She is going to do the last bit with me'.'
At the very last kilometre, there she was. Iris hopped straight into the buggy to join her father on the home stretch, waving her hands to an adoring, cheering, applauding crowd of supporters.
'That's a memory for life,' said James. 'My other children, Ivy and Emlyn, they came out running with me, a few of their friends, came out.'
So too did Noel Ryan, a member of Killala GAA Club, who compared it to a scene from a Rocky movie.
'Just seeing my own family being so happy in the moment and just having that picture in my mind from the start that I get to push Iris up the end, that was a real driving force behind it,' said James.
When the last 6kg ball hit the ten-foot target after six o'clock, the exhausted garda embraced his family before sinking his shattered, weary glutes onto the nearest object.
'I still had an energy to keep going, but not to do another Hyrox,' he said.
The money raised for Down Syndrome Mayo will help subsidise various therapies and counselling sessions for families who often struggle to access them.
'Having that money there to help subsidise that is immense. We do get a lot of people fundraising and that, but a lot of work goes into getting grants to make sure there is stuff there for our members,' explained James.
Days like the one he had last Saturday are not all about fundraising either.
'We get to talk about Down Syndrome and make it a normal thing,' James said.
'People start talking about it and normalising it. It becomes a part of everybody's daily life that they don't see any differences…we have come an awful long way in such a short period of time in this country with it. But there is still a lot of work to go on.
'By being able to spread that awareness just gives us a stronger platform for going forward.'