Pearly whiTes and iron lungs

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Roelof de Jonge

Aside from having a passion to provide Tzaneen’s residents with bright new smiles, local dentist Ruan Rademeyer also makes time for physical challenges. The past weekend, Sunday the 5th of March, he competed in the Nelson Mandela leg of the Ironman 70,3 Championship. He was accompanied by his wife, Lizélle, and joining them on this adventure for the first time was their baby boy, Ewan.

Rademeyer finished this grueling event in an excellent fifth place in his age group for men aged between 40 and 44 years old.

He was the 20th male athlete out of 766 entries to cross the finish line and was also classed 20th out of the 1 125 part participants. He completed the race in a time of four hours, 26 minutes and two seconds (04:26.02)

“I really like all three sections of the race, but I think that I can spend more training time on the cycling part,” he said. “It was bliss to be accompanied by my wife, Lizélle, and our eight months old son, Ewan, who experienced his first flight on a plane and a visit to the sea. Their attendance and support definitely made a difference in my performance on the day, and I would most probably not have been able to achieve such an outstanding result.”

Regarding his preparation for the Ironman Championship, Rademeyer said he followed his training program religiously and was committed not to skip any of his sessions.

Rademeyer said thunder and possible lightning forced the organizers to shorten the swimming course and during the cycling section the riders experienced quite strong winds along with rain. By the time he took on the mini-marathon section, the skies had cleared.

The event started with the swim section from the beach and back whereafter Rademeyer had to jump on his bicycle to complete a 90,1 km course. The cycle route led the competitors all the way back to the starting point at the beach. To finish the event off, the athletes then had to run a half marathon over a distance of 21,1km.