Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 129, April 2020 | Page 16

IN THE LEAD
The Indoor Ironman Experience
Triathlete: Tom Barlow, Cape Town
Whilst on his final pre-lockdown ‘farewell run’ in
nature, Tom’s mind drifted to the Frenchman who’d
just run a marathon on his balcony. Not wanting many
months of hard training to go to waste, he decided
that attempting the first ever indoor Ironman was the
logical way to beat the lockdown blues, and raise
money for a good cause at the same time.
The announcement of the Solidarity Fund during
President Ramaphosa’s speech to the nation on 23
March resonated with Tom. He explained, “The word
solidarity can be defined as unity of feeling among
individuals with a common interest. Covid-19 has led
us to bear witness to the world having a common
interest for the first time in my lifetime.” Also, as the
CEO of Ampersand Asset Management, Tom knows
a worthwhile investment when he see one, saying
that supporting the Solidarity Fund enabled him to
“marry a worthy stated objective with great people
to implement – the best chance to make a lasting
positive contribution.”
Getting a Good Start
On Sunday morning Tom followed his normal race
routine, waking up two hours before the start for a big
breakfast at his Cape Town home, including pancakes
courtesy of his wife, Nicole. This allowed him to relax
and mentally prepare for the day’s challenge, and
trying to match actual race conditions as closely as
possible, he began his journey at exactly 7am. He
slipped into his wetsuit, strapped himself to a harness
and listened to the National Anthem, before jumping
into the pool to get his journey underway.
This was a far less turbulent, frenetic and chaotic start
than he is accustomed to in Port Elizabeth, and Tom
quickly got into his rhythm, smoothly stroking his way
through a 65-minute swim. (He chose this duration,
since it was his “worst case scenario” for this year’s
Ironman).
Swim done, Tom had a hot shower, got dressed into
his cycling kit and proceeded to hammer out the
180km bike ride in 5:50. During this leg, 50 riders from
his triathlon club, Trifactri, joined him on a virtual ride
on Zwift, on the Watopia route, which has a bit more
climbing than the Port Elizabeth route. In addition to
his wife and two step-daughters, who ensured that
he was properly hydrated and catered to his culinary
desires, he had installed a fan on either side to help
keep himself cool during the indoor bike ride.
Following another shower during his transition from
the bike, Tom set about running the marathon on the
treadmill that he had managed to borrow from friends
the day before lockdown. With no real experience
running on a treadmill, he was concerned about this
leg, but managed to polish the marathon off in a very
creditable 3:50. This gave Tom a total active time
(excluding transitions) of 10:45. However, he says
it was much more about the experience, and doing
something special for the country, rather than chasing
a result. Whereas most Ironman finishers rattle off
their detailed split and transition times, Tom had to
look up his times when I chatted to him.
Miles and Maths for the Animals
Runner: Thomas Marais, Port Elizabeth
When he finished running his 100-mile lockdown
run on his driveway, to raise funds for the the Animal
Welfare Society in Port Elizabeth, Thomas Marais
was asked by a friend if the scenery became a bit
monotonous during his run of nearly 26 hours. “I
answered it wasn’t too bad, because the moon was
amazing and I managed to get two sunrises, as
well as a fitting end to probably the toughest thing I
have ever attempted mentally, a rainbow framing the
driveway and a little shower with 200m to go. The only
problem was that it took me 70km to figure out what
the GPS couldn’t!”
The problem arose because the Garmin he was using
to log his distance was reading short on each lap
due to the small area of triangulation for the satellites
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ISSUE 129 APRIL 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za
to mark his progress. The loop he had marked out,
running up and down his driveway and turning on the
front of his property, outside his front gate, was 112m
long, but the Garmin was giving him an average of just
90m per loop, which meant that Thomas had to do
some tricky calculations in the middle of his run to try
and work out how far he had actually run, versus what
the Garmin said he had done. He and his wife even
remeasured the loop, just to be sure.
Having run 70km, according to his Garmin, Thomas
stop briefly to update viewers on the live-stream
feed of his run – and he made remarkable sense for
somebody that far into an ultra-marathon. “If you
take the 161.9 kays I’m doing and you divide it by
112 meters per lap that I’m supposed to do, you get
T
om is an accomplished triathlete who already
has eight full Ironmen under his lycra chaps,
and had been training hard in the build-up
to 29 March. After an excellent half Ironman in East
London, he was eyeing a 9:45 finish in Port Elizabeth
to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in
Kona, Hawaii.