Lionel Sanders confirmed he will return to racing the Ironman distance next month, just under a year after saying he was done with triathlon’s most brutal test of endurance.
Last July ‘No Limits’ said he would be concentrating on middle-distance racing for the foreseeable future, admitting he had no “desire” or “interest” in testing himself over 140.6 miles. He added at the time: “I’m racing like a shell of myself”.
Sanders Ironman hiatus is over
But on Sunday, after claiming a sixth victory at the iconic race that is IRONMAN 70.3 Mont-Tremblant, the 36-year-old Canadian confirmed that the hiatus is over. And almost two years on from his last Ironman – finishing 34th at the 2022 World Championship in Kona – he is indeed returning to full-distance racing.
After returning from a rib stress fracture to overcome Ben Kanute for the win, he told the IRONMAN broadcast team: “I wanted to get in a race before going to the Ironman so this was nice. I can’t feel my rib now, so I have confidence that I can push myself, and push myself in training. And a month from now, I’m doing IRONMAN Lake Placid (Sunday July 21).”
Sunday’s victory in Mont-Tremblant came in dreadful conditions, with torrential rain and chilly temperatures making for an unpleasant race day experience. Especially for a man who openly admits he hates the cold.
Brutal conditions for ‘No Limits’
Sanders admitted: “This was one of those days that was absolutely dreadful, walking out the door and being like ‘oh no’. It’s like where you’re hoping to get a flat tyre beforehand for real. And I was like late to the swim because I was like freezing and wet and to the warmup, and trouble getting my wetsuit on. It’s just like a rough, rough day.
“And I hate the cold, I moved to Tucson to avoid this stuff and I thought coming back in the summer would be okay but no, it turns out it’s not. But I mean this is the conditions and so I just tried to do my absolute best and I swam decently well – you know I had a rib injury so maybe not as good as I could have without a rib injury but it’s the best I could prepare for it.
“And then onto the bike I went to work really, really hard and I was worried about Joao Pereira, the ITU guy, and so when I caught that group I did probably my biggest surge of the race to try and drop those guys. And then I bridged across to Justin Riele and Ben Kanute and Matthew Marquardt, and these guys were just crazy strong. I tried a few times to put in surges but it was not happening. It was a real pleasure to ride with those guys, everyone rode really fair.”
‘Porta Potty, or puke’
Sanders admitted he had to endure some pain on the closing run to complete a victory by just over two minutes from Kanute.
“Then off the bike it was pretty well survival on the run – I was starting to hurt pretty bad at 13k in and I just held on for dear life. I think I overdid the nutrition a bit on the bike and my stomach started to shut down, and it was either like I was gonna have to stop to use the Porta Potty or puke.
“So I was like I have to allow my stomach to settle a little bit and stop eating and like I said, it was survival. I went into survival mode the final 7k. So the terrain is hard, but it was me not running well.”
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