It’s June 24th, 2024, and just for fun, I decided to ride the full Ironman Switzerland bike course. I had completed my first 70.3 a few weeks ago, so I figured I should be able to ride 180km… right? Oh boy, was I wrong. After 7:22 hours, I got back home completely exhausted and seriously questioning my fitness and mental sanity.

“No way I could run a marathon after that,” I posted in my Instagram story that day. Those thoughts got challenged really quickly when I went to watch that year's Ironman Switzerland. The atmosphere and the fighting spirit of these athletes were contagious; I wanted to be like them. It was pretty much that day I decided I did want to become an Ironman.

First order of business was to add a Marathon Goal to HumanGO. I’d never run more than 23km, so I figured it’s smart to at least do one Marathon before signing up. And despite some knee issues – that I’ll get to later – I managed the training and felt pretty prepared at the starting line. Like the idiot I sometimes am, I went out way too fast, though, and blew up badly after the first half.

On top of that, my knees were absolutely on fire. Overall, it was a miserable 3 hours 48 minutes and I may very well have decided to scrap the Ironman Idea… if I hadn’t already signed up three weeks before. So, despite my bad experience, I was committed.

At first, it didn’t feel that special. The sessions I got scheduled by Hugo were not that hard, and the overall training load was not that crazy – no more than I did for the 70.3. Over the winter months, I quickly fell into a rhythm. Having all my workouts planned and available through HumanGO meant I could solely focus on training and trust that what I was doing was right.

But the knee pain when running was still a problem. At some point, I found a workout in the library called “Injury Prevention,” and I told Hugo to add it to my schedule every weekend from then on – and would you look at that – I had virtually zero pain during the Ironman run.

As the temperatures got warmer and the race got ever closer, the weekly totals got longer and the sessions harder. I admit, I started to struggle. I still couldn’t ride for as far or as fast as I wanted, and my running pace had been stagnant for a while. Let’s not even talk about my swimming. I was seriously worried. I was doing everything I could, and yet, I felt my dream was slipping through my fingers.

It was at that point that I noticed a shift in my schedule. Before, I had a lot of HIIT-style sessions and tempo work. But now it was all endurance / Zone 2. At first, I didn’t feel much better. Training was still hard, but on top of that, I was now also going slower! But then the recovery week hit, and something just clicked – physically and in my mind. Long rides stopped feeling long, tempo work was fun again, my mind was clear, and my muscles felt strong. I also got to watch as my fitness score shot up.

I carried that feeling all the way to race day.

Race day came and went in a flash. The culmination of nearly 500 hours of training, all coming down to what ended up being 11 hours of perfect racing. I hit my pace and power goals for the swim and run, and absolutely smashed my wildest expectations for the run – coming within 10 minutes of my marathon PB and beating my stated goal of 11:59 by 59 minutes.

Right after the race, I had a profound sense of invincibility – I had conquered “mount endurance sport” – whatever race I want to do next – 70.3, marathon, etc. – I knew I could finish it. I can see myself racing 70.3s and other shorter races more regularly – and actually try to race them. And while doing another Ironman (or two) is not at all off the table, that won’t happen soon. The mental and physical toll it took on me was immense, and with work and life happening, I don’t want to do that again too soon.

P.S. After writing the last sentence, the need for a big, ridiculous endurance goal in my life was too big, and I signed up for the Alp d’Huez triathlon 2026.