Mullingar lady Jennifer Algar was celebrating last week after she qualified for the world finals in Copenhagen, Denmark.
On Sunday, 20 August, Jennifer Algar took part in KMD IRONMAN, an event in Copenhagen that is the official qualifier for the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Hawaii in October 2017.
Speaking to Topic a very humble, Jennifer who works as a vet at Auburn Vets Mullingar, said she was so sure she would not qualifier that she didn’t hang around for the prize giving ceremony. “I got a bit of a shock. I haven’t even had a chance to see how many qualified with me. I know I was eight in my age group.”
Jennifer said the event involved a 3.8km swim in the lagoon of Amager Beach Park followed by a two lap course bike route that totaled 182km and a 42.2km run. “For the swim I went a little bit off course so I would have been a little bit quicker. It was quite windy and there was a lot of rain on the course and we did four laps around the city for the run.”
Jennifer underwent a five month training plan in preparation for the competition which she admits took up a lot of her time. “It was about 15 hours training a week which would take in your weekends as well and for the last two weeks before the race, we were doing long training sessions before the race so it was four to five hour bikes rides with an hour to two hour running. My longest session was an hours swim followed by five hour bike and a two hour run,” she revealed.
Jennifer had previously trained with Sligo Tri Club last year but it was up to herself to stay motivated this time around. “I had done a few triathlons before but never an Ironman so I kind of got talked into it by them. If you had asked me before this if I would do another one, I would have said ‘No’ but now I think I will do another one,” she laughed.
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Asked how it felt to complete such an arduous and grueling task, Jennifer said that she did feel her a sense of achievement. “It’s great to realise you can do that distance and what your body can do is pretty amazing. I was very nervous about being able to finish but when you are actually doing it, you have so much people around cheering you on that you are fully of adrenaline and you keep going.”
Despite her achievement, Jennifer will be able to take part in the finals in Hawaii in six weeks due to other commitments. “I would definitely take part in again though,” she added.
For anyone considering taking on the challenge, Jennifer’s advice was to make sure they could schedule in enough time for training, “I would recommend it to anyone. Make sure you have plenty of time to train at the weekend but apart from that I’d definitely advise it. And it helps if you have a very understanding partner too,” she laughed.
Jennifer’s sister Niamh made the trip over to Copenhagen to cheer her on. “I coudn’t have done it without friends and family helping me along and I had Niamh on the sidelines,” she added.
