Father and disabled son become triathletes, prove "anything is possible"

Blake Ferrell can't run, swim or ride a bicycle, but on Sunday he will compete in a race that demands so much of its participants that most able-bodied people are scared off.

While Blake is developmentally impaired by a rare genetic disorder, he has something more powerful working in his favor: the love and will of his father, David Ferrell.

It's not a one-way street.

Ask anybody who's competed in endurance races: Triathlons will help you calibrate exactly where your tolerance for pain stops. Blake helps David push past that barrier.

“Sometimes it hurts, but when I'm training or racing with Blake there’s no pain," David tells the Asbury Park Press. "I’m locked in.”

The father-son duo from Middletown hope to push each other — Blake figuratively, David literally — across the finish line of their 26th triathlon when they compete in the New York City Triathlon on Sunday morning.

This race, which begins in the Hudson River and ends in Central Park, is the biggest stage they've ever been on, and David plans to take full advantage of it.

For the last seven years, David, 55, and Blake, 19, have been racing in grueling swim-bike-run events not just to challenge themselves, but to make a statement: People with limited mobility or cognitive abilities are valued members of society, not to be looked past or ignored.

“When you first see my son or anybody in a wheelchair, what’s people's first reaction, especially kids? They’ll stare, because it’s different — and it's not to be mean," David said. "We just want them to say hi, (Blake's) just another part of the community.”

The diagnosis

"STXBP1"

To you or I, that looks like a meaningless combination of letters and numbers. Perhaps a license plate number or someone's attempt at an uncrackable password.

But to the Ferrells — David, wife and mom Colleen, Blake and his 14-year-old brother Luke, who is "a typical teen" — STXBP1 means the world.

"When Blake was 15, he was diagnosed with having a deletion of the STXBP1 gene," said David, who works as a financial advisor in Freehold. "At the time he was diagnosed, there were only 40 reported cases worldwide."

The STXBP1 gene "appears to play a role in the release of neurotransmitters" and mutations in the gene have been linked to severe forms of epilepsy, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Blake has been beset by challenges essentially his whole life.

Doctors warned his parents early on that Blake might never walk, but by 5 he beat the odds and stood on his own, even taking a few steps.

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He did develop some verbal language skills a few years later, but worsening seizures "took away what little speech he had," David said.

"Blake was having uncontrollable seizures, 250 to 300 a month," he said. "We almost couldn’t take him out of the house. We needed to make a change, and we found these doctors at (the NYU Langone Medical Center)… little by little, these seizures are under control."

This is the first triathlon that the pair are competing in for a cause. They're raising money for FACES (Finding a Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures) at Langone.

To donate, go here

"It was such an amazing transformation that we had to give back somehow," he added.

(story continues below this video on FACES)

How it works

After proclaiming his intentions to run a triathlon with Blake in 2010, David had to figure out how to make it happen. Boston Marathon legends Dick and Rick Hoyt provided a template, but David still had to make it work for all three components of the race.

For the swim, Blake is in a typical inflatable two-seat raft that David — attached by rope — drags behind him for the length of 17 football fields. The swimming stage, David said, is often at the mercy of the elements — if the water is too choppy, then he can't take Blake out there.

On the road, Blake will sit in a modified racing wheelchair that can hitch behind a bicycle during that 40-kilometer portion of the race and that David can detach and then push during the final leg of the triathlon, a 10-kilometer run, or about 6¹/₄ miles.

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Their first tri was in Long Branch and David called up Doug Rice, the race's organizer, a veteran triathlete and the founder of the Sandy Hookers, a training group.

"I said sure we’ll make it work," Rice said. "No matter what the handicap is, it shouldn't eliminate anyone from participating or trying."

"There are people that help with the transitions (between the stages), but (David) gets no special treatment," Rice clarified. "He does it just like anybody else."

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Beyond speed

When asked what he considers a good finishing time or if he had a specific goal for this weekend, David demurred.

"We don’t win," David said, "but we’re never last."

"The second year we did this I started to get this crazy idea that I could get a better time, I’ll do this and I’ll do that and shave five minutes off my time," he said. "I’m past all that."

Just as David and Blake are comfortable in treating the race as an exercise in father-son bonding and community education, other athletes draw strength from their unity.

"It's not the speed," Rice said. "(David’s) pushing it hard, but he’s competing out there with Blake as one (racer). Am I inspired by it? Absolutely. I think a lot of other people are as well."

In many ways, the race will be the easiest part of Sunday. Team Ferrell has to be ready to go — prepare the boat, the wheelchair, the bicycle and get everybody to the starting line — by 5 a.m. It's all worth it though, David said.

"When we’re racing or training he’s completely calm and when we’re done he’s got the biggest smile on his face,” he said.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com