Just 13 days on from competing in virtually the shortest format in the sport, the incredible Kristian Blummenfelt admitted he “surprised” himself with an astonishing victory at IRONMAN Frankfurt.
Blummenfelt finished 12th as he looked to defend his Olympic title in Paris at the end of July and then on August 5 took part in the Mixed Team Relay over the super sprint distance.
Back to full distance for the first time in nearly two years, the 2021 IRONMAN World Champion and 2022 IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion only had to finish in Frankfurt to validate his slot for this year’s IMWC on Kona.
But he did so much more than that as he powered clear of the field by clocking a 2:32:29 marathon – despite both a toilet stop and throwing up on the run!
‘I’d barely done any long runs’
He had nearly five minutes in hand of runner-up Kieran Lindars of Great Britain and interviewed afterwards on the live broadcast he told Paul Kaye: “I must say I’m quite surprised.
“I felt I came in with really not much preparation – a real lack of riding the TT bike and I’d barely done any long runs.
“So I was realistically thinking like, yeah, go out as normal and just expect the world to hit me quite early on the bike!
“But I think it was after 160k, I realised there were only two guys up front.
“I thought it was a way bigger group up front and I was riding in something like 15th. And at that point I started realising that if I’m feeling okay coming off the bike, I can actually run for a podium.”
‘Everything just came up!’
That front duo were Kristian Hogenhaug and Ruben Zepuntke and starting the run Blummenfelt would have nearly five minutes to make up on the former, and a little over two minutes on Zepuntke.
It would take him less than 10km to reel them both in – and then it was a question of holding in some nutrition.
He explained: “I haven’t really practiced nutrition for long course in quite a while and I really felt that on the third lap when everything just came up!”
The toilet stop and the mid-stride vomit didn’t derail him though and he added: “I think most of the [full-distance] races I’ve done have been in the heat and humidity so to finally have this sort of help as well – when it was p***ing it down on the bike – really helped me to stay cool.”
And despite jumping up from 10km to 42km on the run, Blummenfelt never looked like weakening – indeed for a while a first-ever sub 2:30 marathon in a full-distance race looked under threat.
And asked about that, he again admitted surprise, adding: “I guess that was maybe the reason why I didn’t go that well in Paris where I finished 12th. Maybe I was coming in with a bit too much capacity rather than focusing on the shorter path.”
But when did he realise that he was going to add another title to his incredible CV?
“I would say you never know on the marathon. When I started puking up on the third lap of the run with 15k to go, I knew that it would be crucial to still be able to take in the nutrition, even though I’d just lost everything!
“But then when I sort of managed to find the rhythm again, I knew that I was still running faster than second and third and could hold it together.”
