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P.A. triathletes succeed at Ironman competition in B.C.

Sep 1, 2022 | 12:00 PM

Through the heat and the sweat, several P.A. athletes gave it their all at the Ironman Canada competition last weekend in Penticton.

The gruelling course involved a nearly four-kilometre open swim in Okanagan Lake, a 180 km bike ride, and a 42-kilometre run over two loops in the city.

Overall, Prince Albert athletes performed very well with seven competitors starting the race and five finishing.

One of those participating was Scott Kurytnik who took part in his fourth Ironman competition.

“I had the swim I expected, my time was about where I expected to come out of the water,” he said looking back on his performance. ”I had actually a better-than-expected bike. The course was challenging. The swim, we had good conditions, it was calm, the weather was good. It was kind of similar to swimming at Waskesiu.”

By the time he got to the bike course, Kurytnik said that’s when the race started to amp up. The hilly course did make for tremendous views of the Okanagan. Then came the running portion, which Kurytnik said started out well and then grew more challenging.

“The heat was a bit of a factor for me on the run. The first 26 k went well and smooth and my pace was good and then I kind of hit a point where I couldn’t take any more fluids in without feeling nauseous.”

He did finish the race placing 26th in his division with a time of 11 hours, 29 minutes.

Christina Charles was the top finisher for the Prince Albert club, placing second overall for the women in a time of 10:28 and qualifying for her second Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

Anne Charles and Chad Gareau finished their first Ironman with Anne clocking a time of 11:47, finishing third in her age group.

To take part in an Ironman or any triathlon competition takes a lot of training and preparation and as Kurytnik explains, training is different for each athlete.

“There’s a lot of different routes that people take. I’ve done one where I found a training plan online for the last ones I did and for this one I worked with a program called TriDot. This was a little bit different than what I was used to. It was a decent training plan for me, but my stomach had other plans.”

Finally, Kurtynik said that what made the IronMan experience that much better was having the support of family who made their way to Penticton.

“It was great to have the support of the local club and their families.”

derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @PA_Craddock