FORMER Kelly College student and local health and fitness coach, Matt Luxton competed in the Ironman 70.3 in Aarhus, Denmark earlier this month. 

In torrential rain and winds of up to 36mph the 1,200 competitors were all set for the 1.2 mile sea swim, 56 mile bike and the 13.1 mile run.

So well did he do that Matt had finished in a time that qualified him for the Ironman 70.3 world championships on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland in 2016.

It was never going to be easy. Due to rough sea conditions and waves of 4-5 foot in height, the swim was cut short to 1,000m but the rest of the race continued as planned.

Matt, who is relatively new to triathlon, having transferred three years ago from playing rugby for the last 20 years, was just hoping for a personal best.

He told the Times: ‘At the swim start, you could sense the trepidation amongst the athletes, looking out to sea and watching the waves going over the bouys!

‘But this is an Ironman  and if you want to cross that finish line there are many challenges to be overcome not only on race day but in the months leading up to it.’

At 8am the mass start began. It wasn’t all plain sailing for Matt, with strong currents dragging him off course and at one point he wondered if it was going to end in him being rescued.

 ‘I came out of the water and felt pretty pleased to have survived. I didn’t think I had done that well compared to my fellow competitors, but was out in 23rd place and on to the bike. I just kept reminding myself to focus on the next job,’ he said.

 Next came a 56 mile bike route, into a headwind and the driving rain. With roughly 3,300 feet of climbing and debris from the trees to contend with this ride was never going to be easy. A chain then came off costing Matt a further 60-90 seconds to repair and regain his speed. Maintaining an average pace of 21.4 mph, Matt finished the bike 10 places better off and completed the course in two hours 40 minutes.

In the half marathon Matt was maintaining a pace of just over seven minutes per mile in tough conditions, on a slightly undulating run route.  He finished the run in a time of 1hr 33 mins and completed the whole race in 4hrs 37mins. His finish — one of only 800 to do so — meant Matt had qualified for the Ironman 70.3 world championships in Australia next year. 

A delighted Matt said: ‘To be honest this was very much a long term goal, more of a dream I guess. If it had happened in the next four years I would have been delighted. This has given me a great focus now for the next 12 months, which I think we all need.

‘I am lucky to have a great group of friends around me and training partners that I am accountable to. The goal now is to see how good I can get before the world championships and to keep pushing forwards.’