Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 129, April 2020 | Page 12

IN THE LEAD
The First Home IronMom
Triathlete: Charlotte
Raubenheimer, Port Elizabeth
Charlotte’s
priceless
home-
made
IronMom
trophy
However, she quickly recharged and kept cycling at
the same intensity.
S
aturday 28 March was day two of South
Africa’s lockdown period, and whilst many
South Africans spent the day getting
acclimatised to lockdown conditions – or figuring
out where they were going to store all the toilet
paper they’d needlessly stockpiled – for Charlotte
Raubenheimer it was a day of speculation.
The following day should have been her first Ironman,
and no matter what she did to distract herself, the
thought of an alternate reality where she ran down
the red-carpet to complete her first Ironman kept
drifting into her head. She tried to push the thoughts
of becoming an Ironman out of her mind by declaring
that she’d do a “long home training session” on
Sunday. By that evening, it had escalated to “Maybe I
should just give the full Ironman a shot?”
Doing it for Phillip
For Charlotte, Ironman was never about a medal, but
about making a difference. She’d originally decided to
do the Ironman to raise funds for a new wheelchair for
Phillip Janse van Rensburg, who suffers from cerebral
palsy. He lives at the nearby Cheshire Home, which
houses 54 physically disabled adults, and he would
often chat to Charlotte and her two sons, Jeanré and
Leo, on their walks to the beach. When Charlotte
noticed that they hadn’t seen Phillip in a while, she
made enquiries and found out that Phillip’s motorised
wheelchair, which he propels using his chin, was
broken beyond repair and needed to be replaced.
Now Charlotte felt a sense of obligation to the
people who’d generously donated to her Back-a-
Buddy page, and did not want Phillip to have to
wait until November for a new wheelchair (when the
rescheduled Ironman is due to take place). She was
also concerned that her ‘busy mom’ schedule would
not be able to sustain the Ironman training regime
until then, and figured that there was no time like the
present to ensure she honoured her commitments.
With 10 finishes to his credit, Charlotte’s medical
doctor husband Jean is an accomplished Ironman
athlete, usually finishing around the 10-hour mark.
This year, he decided to take a year off and Charlotte
grabbed the opportunity to keep the family name
flying high in the Windy City, so Jean coached his wife
throughout the journey, and was on hand to make
sure that Charlotte earned her Ironman finish.
Make it Ultra-realistic
Race Sunday proved a windy day, which meant that
conditions in the sea would have been choppy, so
instead of the planned 1 hour 15 harness swim
in the pool, Charlotte did an extra 15 minutes
of swimming, “just to make sure that the full
distance would have been covered.” Then it
was onto the bike.
Having spent about 80% of her training
time on the bike, the cycle leg was her
strength, but Jean wasn’t going to let his
wife have it easy here either. He loaded a
hilly 180km course onto Zwift, but her last-
minute decision to do the Ironman meant
that Charlotte had not even charged her iPad
properly, so 90km into the ride the battery died.
12
ISSUE 129 APRIL 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Fortunately, marathons are hard enough, and
Charlotte had never run further than 25km, so Jean
didn’t need to throw any curveballs into the run leg
to give Charlotte the authentic Ironman experience.
She spun her web around their Summerstrand
property by running 316 laps on a 133m loop, which
amounted to 1580 knee-jarring turns along the way.
Charlotte says she found the section from 28km to
35km by far the hardest, but fortunately Jean joined
her, giving her encouragement and support when
needed. At 8:13pm, just over 13 hours after she took
her first stroke in the pool, Charlotte stepped onto the
small pink hand towel that her sons had laid down
to substitute for the traditional red-carpet finish, and
became the world’s first Home IronMom!
Mission Accomplished
Her final splits were swim 1:30, bike 6:15 and run
5:08, but this is largely inconsequential, because
as news of her incredible achievement spread, the
donations on her Back-A-Buddy page climbed
past the R70,000 needed to pay for Philip’s new
wheelchair. In fact, there is now a surplus of funds,
and the additional money will be used to create a trust
to help cover Phillip’s future needs.
Charlotte is now looking forward to the real glitz and
glamour of the rescheduled Ironman South Africa in
November, but no matter what medals she adds to
her collection, nothing is likely to be as cherished as
the special Lockdown Ironman trophy her boys made
from an ice cream container, a plastic water bottle and
clippings from old Ironman magazines!
Youngest son Leo
supporting Mom
Buxton
Charlote was supported all the way
by husband and coach Jean