Stories behind the results from Ironman Hawaii 2009
October 12th, 2009 by Aleksandar
This past weekend was the running of the Hawaii Ironman.
For the race in Hawaii there are more than 2000 thousand well trained athletes and each with their own unique story which they bring to the unique event that is about much more than just crossing a line on the road.
For many going to Hawaii to participate in the race has been a dream, for others they perhaps never thought much about it and it just kind of happened.
When you follow the race online as I did this saturday there are two things that come to mind.
First of all – an ironman is really long and at moments very boring to watch. Second is the journey the people you know who are participating has traveled to get to the start line.
My friend Kaisa has had cancer twice, a guy from my club never had planned to go but it just kinda happened because he was too fast in his first iroman in Frankfurt this summer.
Igor Nastic and Dejan Patrcevic who are a part of triathlon team were also on the start line.
I was very impressed with both of them. Dejan was 29th overall and did a solid race. He has fought very hard to get to the level he is at. It is not easy to develop into world class when you are isolated in a country where only very few do triathlon.
I am sure that Dejan is setting the standard and in the future we will hopefully see more Croats on the top level in triahtlon.
Igor was 5th in his age group. That is a great result, and when you consider that the training is done between a million other things that Igor like to do in his life then it’s truly amazing how he did. Igor is a man of many great talents and triathlon is one of them.
I admire both of them for doing things the way they do just like I admire Kaisa for the way she got her result.
I think that a race like ironman is unique in the way that at the startline there are so many totally different people and they have traveled so different ways to get to the race and after they will move in new directions.
But on that day where those + 2000 ways of living crossed each other that is amazing and in my opinion greater than any time or result that can be achieved on race day.
This is also what makes triathlon unique and intresting to me.
