2018 participation in Ironman South Africa
Today, I’d like to talk about my experience in Ironman South Africa. We go to 1 year earlier when my trainer Alejandro Santamaria and me decided that we were going to try our qualification to triathlon World Championship Ironman Kona in 2018 Ironman Southafrica so we started our training plan.
Hello everyone!
In 2017 I did 70.3 Ironman Coeur d´Alene where I qualified for Ironman 70.3 Ironman Chattanooga World Championship in August: a really good experience after which we started training already for 4 months with our minds set on Southafrica 2018. By the end of the year, in October we went to Ibiza, to the Spanish Long Distance Triathlon Championship where I finished 2nd in my Age Group so things were looking good for our goal.
I kept an intense routine of competing and training, so on the 31 of December, we did the San Silvestre 10k Race in Las Rozas Madrid where I finished 4th overall, just behind 3 known world athletes. Only 4 months to go for Southafrica and we decide to do a test in Half Distance Triathlon Tenerife, where I did the 2nd best running sector overall, just behind Romain Guillaume, BMC pro triathlete, going to finish myself 12th overall in that race. On that same night, I went to Sands Beach Resort in Lanzarote to make our last training with my trainer and Junior World Champion Alejandro Santamaria, Peru Alfaro, and Benat Sagarzazu, ones of the best triathletes in Spain, just before leaving to Southafrica 2 weeks later.
After being 8 months of training just and only for THE DAY (SUNDAY 15 APRIL 2018), we took our flight to Johannesburg before going to Port Elizabeth, where the race was taking place. After 20 flying and arriving just to see that the airline lost my bike, I thought about sticking to the plan and try to think about solutions for this setback. The day after, I received my bike in the hotel so everything now was again set to go. I got there some days earlier to get ready and get used to the clime and weather because there is no time difference with Spain. The only catch was that we only had to wake up at 4 am in the race day. So we started our preparation, running and cycling over there with many pros while the race ambiance started to get noticed.
Many days of eating carbohydrates, resting at the hotel, doing the things that we had to do to get ready, and then, on that Saturday is when all the nerves come to you. We did the check-in registration and we went to the triathletes meeting, where you could find all the triathletes in race mode where everyone is thinking about the day after. We had dinner early, so we could sleep enough to get ready to wake up at 4 am (it was difficult to sleep because of the nerves, but I felt asleep easily because I had all planned perfectly to do a good race).
On Sunday morning I woke up at 3.45 am to get ready, have breakfast, do my routine before going to the water at 6.15 am, when the Ironman South Africa in Port Elizabeth starts. The swimming sector went really well, the time that I expected. Then I ran to the bike and the first 90kms were really good, but in kilometer 100 my “battery” switched off and there started my struggle of 80 km riding and 4 km running. I was 7th age group before getting retired in the 4th kilometer running (my best sector in triathlon), but my body said “stop” and I couldn’t continue. That was the only time I ever retired in a triathlon. But my experience In South Africa didn’t finish there, because two days after that I took some days to visit a safari before flying back to Spain.
It was a really good experience, although I didn’t achieve my goal, I’m sure I’ll try it again.
Hope you enjoyed it being with me in my trip to Ironman Southafrica.
Vitolo