The seventh edition of the Ironman 70.3 (half-Ironman) South Africa takes place on Sunday 26 January in East London.
The seventh edition of the Ironman 70.3 (half-Ironman) South Africa takes place on Sunday 26 January in East London.
The event will see thousands of athletes from around the world taking part.
The half Ironman, 1.9km swim, 90km cycle and 21km run, covers exactly half the distance of Ironman South Africa.
Grahamstown will be represented by five athletes, Daan Zeelie, Terri-Lynn Penney, Deon Boshoff, Monica Strydom and Walter Eksteen.
Strydom and Eksteen will be competing in their first half-Ironman event, although Eksteen has competed in the Ironman South Africa event in Port Elizabeth on two occasions.
Penney is the only Grahamstown athlete to have completed all six half-Ironman events, while Boshoff has completed five.
Eksteen, who is using Sunday's event as a build-up towards the full Ironman, says he plans to finish in under six hours, although he is “not quite as prepared as I would have hoped to be”.
Eksteen will be competing for the Ironman 4 The Kidz charity.
Zeelie says he is not looking forward to the swim and he hopes to finish in six and a half hours.
While Boshoff says anything close to a six hour finish would be great, Penney is hoping to break six hours.
Strydom says she plans to “have lots of fun on the day”, adding that she is not looking forward to the bike leg, while her strongest of the three is the run.
The Ironman 70.3 activities began Thursday 23 January with registration, which continues today and tomorrow, together with the expo.
Saturday also sees the Iron Girl run.
On Sunday, Ironman 70.3 begins at 6.45am with wave one. The final wave, wave eight starts at 8am.
