‘Intimidating’ to go into Worlds after four months off – but Lionel Sanders up for the challenge

Beefed up IRONMAN star Lionel Sanders has confirmed he will compete at this year’s World Championships in Nice, even though his current injury issues are likely to prevent him from taking part in any kind of warm-up event.

Such is his desire to take part in the showcase race of the men’s season, the 37-year-old Canadian is willing to jump straight back into a full-distance IRONMAN, knowing that his preparations will have been far from ideal.

He’s recently finally got clarity on his injury, which is a sacral stress fracture – a hairline crack in the sacrum, a bone at the base of the spine, that is usually caused by repetitive stress rather than a single injury.

100% record this year

He had been severely hampered by a gluteal issue, which he believed was caused by the diet-related condition known as Relative Energy Deficiency, or RED-S.

Sanders has only competed twice this year – winning on both of his starts at the IRONMAN 70.3 races in Oceanside and St George.

Aware that he needed to increase his food intake to combat the potentially debilitating impact of RED-S, Sanders has since doubled his intake of carbs and now weighs over 169lbs, compared to the 158lbs when he won at St George.

But, having only just returned to the running track, he has ruled out the possibility of joining the field at the Louisville 70.3 on August 17, meaning that by the time he lines up in the south of France on September 14, it will have been four long months on the sidelines recovering.

‘Still excited’

Speaking on his latest YouTube VLOG (embedded below), he accepts that jumping straight into the World Championships will be a daunting experience.

“Nice, is an extremely difficult race, an extremely difficult bike, which then effectively makes it an extremely difficult race,” he said. “So, my next race being an IRONMAN on one of the hardest courses on the circuit, against the top guys in the world? I mean, that’s a little bit intimidating.

“But I think I need to go to the World Championships, even if I’m only running for six weeks or so leading into it, because I only have a few years left. Of course, it’s intimidating to go to the worlds after approximately four months off. But that’s the right decision.

“I can at least go see where my swim and my bike stacks up. I don’t really want to just drop out, so I’m going to give it my very best and get a great data point and be looking forward to the rest of the season, as well as looking forward to the 2026 Ironman World Champs, where I intend to not miss the mark. So is it ideal, no? Am I still excited about the rest of the season? Absolutely.”

Learning all the time

Focusing his training on building a strong base of cardio, he plans to be ‘aerobically fit’ by the time he gets to Nice, building up the fitness through regular bike and swim work, before stepping up his running in the weeks prior to the event.

It is all a far cry from his original plan to move the family out to Europe so that he could acclimatise in good time to the change in weather and conditions from his home in Arizona.

A recent stay back in his home country of Canada saw them miss the sunshine too much, and the Sanders family are now back in Tucson, enjoying the 13 hours of sunshine a day and dealing with the 102-degree heat.

And in typical Sanders style, the likeable athlete remains positive and confident that he will come out of this latest setback having learned more about himself and his body.

“I think after you get injured, every injury should be an opportunity to become better, to learn something that is meaningful and lasting,” he said. “It is important for me that, from being injured, I can come back stronger. Because then it wasn’t a bad experience. If you come back stronger, then it wasn’t in vain.

“I would almost argue my stress fracture from 2019 was in vain, as I didn’t really take anything out of it. What did I get from it? Aside from three months off? Not much. This time? This injury is going to go down as one of the most valuable things that have happened in my career, with certainty.

“I’m literally at almost double the carb intake than where I was four years ago. On a ride, I would have normally consumed 400 calories and burned over 2,000 calories. Massive deficit. Contrast that with now, where I’m taking in 1,200 calories over two hours, with 2,000 burned, and that is only an 800 deficit. Big difference.”