I must be mis-interpreting your requirement...
How about this?
timer=0
count=0
totaltime=0
# 1 second delay with keyboard override.
delay()
{
read -n1 -s -t1 keyboard
}
read -p "Press any...
Not sure if this is what you are after.
A very basic keyboard input version using a pseudo-INKEY$ in seconds only.
OSX 10.7.5, default bash terminal. Keys S=Start, F=Finish, Q=Quit...
#!/bin/bash...