Most people like to go for a run, a bike ride or even a swim on the weekends.
Susan Hunter likes to do all three...to the extreme. Hunter recently completed her fifth Ironman Triathlon.
An Ironman Triathlon race is broken down in three parts. The first part is a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride and ending with a full marathon (26.2 miles).
“It was tough,” Hunter said. “But it’s probably one of the neatest experiences I’ve had in my life. It really is.”
Hunter first got into triathlons about 15 years ago, and ran her first Ironman five years ago.
“This was my fifth Ironman,” she said. “The first one I did was back in ‘03. I’ve been doing triathlons for 15 years, but I didn’t get into the Ironman triathlons until six years ago. I had watched it on TV like everyone else and decided that it was something I wanted to do. I thought about it, talked to my husband about it and he said let’s try it and that’s how it all came about.”
Hunter’s husband Don, has been with her all the way.
“My husband is my bike coach as well as my regular coach and training partner,” she said. “He has turned me into a very good cyclist.”
The Ironman Canada race began at 7 a.m. with 2,300 competitors hitting the water at the sound of the cannon. Hunter completed the swimming portion in an hour and 22 minutes. After changing into her cycling clothes, she grabbed her bike and headed out on the hilly and sometimes mountainous roads south of Penticton.
High winds made the bike course difficult. After six plus hours of riding her bike, she returned to town, changed from cycling gear to running clothes, and began the last test of endurance, the 26.2 mile marathon. Cold rain began at the half-way point and she ran through the rain for the remainder of the race. Hunter hit the finish line in a time of 13 hours and 55 minutes.
Just finishing an Ironman triathlon is considered a once in a life-time accomplishment for most people, but not for Hunter.
“It’s very addicting,” she said of competing. “A friend of mine once said that you become an adrenaline junkie, and I have to agree with that. I’ve already signed up for my sixth. I’m going to go to Cozumel and do the Ironman Cozumel.”
The Ironman World Championships are held each year in Kona, Hawaii, and Hunter would like to compete there one day.
“I aspire to do that,” she said. “Right now my times aren’t fast enough, but hopefully sometime in the future I’ll get to go.”
Hunter trains religiously as much as 20 to 25 hours a week in the months leading up to a race. But as much physical toughness that it takes to complete an Ironman, Hunter feels the mental side is even more important. “I personally believe that it takes more mental toughness than physical toughness,” she said. “Your body can do most anything your mind tell sit to do. That’s how POW’s survive because they’re mentally tough. I think that’s how you make it through an Ironman, you have to be mentally tough.”
Hunter is a great example of someone wanting to achieve something, and then going out and doing it. Something she says we’re all capable of.
“You can do anything you set your mind to,” she said. “People get to thinking that they can’t do something, and that’s what stops them from doing it. I started out as a jogger here in Minden. And over the years I moved up to my first marathon, then my second and then I decided to do a triathlon. Then I decided to do another, then another and I just kept working my way up. In the Ironman Canada, I ran with people in their 70’s, and some of them were faster than me.”
Hunter will soon begin training for her sixth Ironman competition and will continue to train for a possible berth in the World Championships in Hawaii.
Odds are she’ll make it, as she seems to accomplish everything she sets her mind to.
Submitted photo
Minden’s Susan Hunter recently completed her fifth Ironman Triathlon, as she competed in the Ironman Canada in Penticton, British Columbia.
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