FORMER Launceston College student and local health and fitness coach, Matt Luxton competed in the Ironman 70.3 in Denmark on Sunday, September 13.

In torrential rain and winds of up to 36mph the 1200 competitors were all set for the 1.2 mile sea swim, 56 mile bike and the 13.1 mile run.

However, due to rough sea conditions and waves of 4-5 foot in height, the swim was cut short to 1000m. 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.

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.

8am and 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 out in 23rd place and on to the bike. I just kept reminding myself to focus on the next job.”

A 56 mile route, into a headwind and the driving rain. With roughly 3300ft of climbing and debris from the trees to contend with this ride was never going to be easy.

After going over a cobbled section at eight miles and losing all of his electrolytes, Matt then had to rethink his fuelling strategy.

“If I had drunk too much water alone at this point, there was a danger of inducing cramp by flushing out the electrolytes all ready in my body. Luckily, I knew what to do and used the aid stations to get what I could on board.”

That wasn’t it, a chain coming off cost Matt a further 60-90 seconds to repair and re-gain his speed.

Maintaining an average pace of 21.4mph, Matt finished the bike ten places better off and completed the course in two hours 40 minutes. On to the half marathon.

“I felt really good on the first six miles of the run, apart from a cramp in my quadriceps muscle which I just ran through, I felt comfortable.”

Matt was maintaining a pace of just over seven minute miles in tough conditions, on a slightly undulating run route. He finished the run in a time of one hour 33 minutes and completed the whole race in four hours 37 minutes.

Of the 1200 entered, there were 800 finishers.

The best news was yet to come. Matt had finished in a time that qualified him for the Ironman 70.3 world championships on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland in 2016.

Commenting on this achievement, 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.”

Matt is now focusing on his Masters degree in exercise and nutrition science and on his own strength and conditioning over the next few months.