Three amateurs who decided to embark on the "unique experience" of Ironman Lanzarote

Borja González, Benjamín Perdomo, and Domingo Vilavert narrate their three personal stories with a common beginning, as none of them had experience in long-distance triathlons, but with different outcomes.

May 20 2022 (09:35 WEST)
Updated in May 20 2022 (16:35 WEST)
Borja Gonzalez, Benjamin Perdomo, and Domingo Vilavert, during their participations in the Ironman Lanzarote
Borja Gonzalez, Benjamin Perdomo, and Domingo Vilavert, during their participations in the Ironman Lanzarote

The Lanzarote Ironman brings together more than a thousand athletes from all over the world. However, it also welcomes amateurs who decide to fully engage in this experience and live the satisfaction of being a "finisher."

This is the case of Borja González, Benjamín Perdomo, and Domingo Vilavert, who, without prior experience in this type of competition, decided to venture into the Lanzarote Ironman.

The three coincide in starting without any background in long-distance triathlons, but differ completely in the result: one decided that it would be his only Ironman, another assures that he will do it again when his personal situation allows it, and the third was so hooked that he has already finished, no more and no less, than five editions.

The Ironman, a “thorn” that Borja González managed to remove

Borja González is one of those people who, without being a professional triathlete, decided to compete in an Ironman. “It was a thorn I had in my side for a long time, and I set out to do it and managed to do it,” he explains.

To do this, he acknowledges that he had to give up many things during that year, given the number of hours he had to dedicate to training. “It's difficult if you have family responsibilities, you have to talk to the family beforehand, but we organized ourselves and managed to do it,” he points out.

González narrates that years before competing in his first Ironman, he trained with a lover of Lanzarote triathlons, Miguel Ángel Labrador. “I trained with him for many years, but when I decided to do the Ironman I did it with the help of the guys from Mc2Action, who are physical trainers and helped me a lot to be able to do it,” he adds.

The intensity of the training extended throughout the week, even on “rest” days. “We trained every day, there are three sports and in the end you always do something, even on rest days. Those days you did active rests, and you went and jogged a little or stretched in the water, you get into a dynamic that on the days you didn't do anything you even felt strange,” González details.

Regarding the race, Borja González assures that his goal was to do 12 hours, although he finally finished the race in 12 hours and 20 minutes. “I finished with the feeling of finishing the race well,” he says, although he acknowledges that he was left with the “thorn” of whether he could have gone a little faster in some of the sections of the race.

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Borja González in the 2017 Ironman

“In the end, it is a very long race, and you have to have a lot of head throughout all the moments,” points out Borja González, who considers emotional stability to be fundamental in order to compete in the sporting event. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of learning from the advice given to him by some experienced athletes in the Ironman: “Someone told me once not to stop in the race, and there were moments in the race when I wasn't going at the time I wanted but I didn't stop. These are details that are fundamental for the head.”

Regarding the difficulty of the three modalities, González acknowledges that the one that cost him the most was swimming, although it didn't go too badly for him. “My partner helped me with this, because my family is full of good swimmers. But as it is the first part of the test, you get it out of the way quickly”, asserts the athlete, and despite the fact that it is the sport that he liked the least at the time, it is the one he practices the most today, carrying out very difficult crossings such as the Bocayna, which is disputed by joining Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

What Borja González is clear about is that his experience in the Ironman remained in 2017, and that he would not try again. “I got rid of the thorn, and now I have other family responsibilities, and I think it's an investment of time that I made but wouldn't do again,” he explains.

“The Ironman is an incredible experience. Everything you invest during the preparation, you enjoy on the day of the test, and few things are comparable to the personal satisfaction of finishing an Ironman,” says Borja González.

Benjamín Perdomo: “The difficult thing is training, the test is to enjoy”

The current CEO of the Tourist Centers, Benjamín Perdomo, has a title that few can boast: being an Ironman finisher. It was in 2016, when after finishing some half-distance triathlons, he launched himself to do an Ironman.

“It was a wonderful experience,” says Perdomo, who explains that he spent, as usual, a whole year preparing to be able to participate in the Ironman. “If you are going to make a jump in distance, you have to accumulate many kilometers and train a lot to be able to participate.

However, despite the hardness of the Ironman, Perdomo assures that “the difficult thing is training”, and that the day of the test “is to enjoy”. “The test is a real joy, what is difficult is getting up on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays to do 100-kilometer bike rides and another 15 running,” explains the finisher, who acknowledges that it is “very hard” to be able to combine training with work or being with the family.

Perdomo details that in the preparation for the Ironman he trained an average of 3 hours a day, and that even on weekends that average rose to 5 hours of training. “A coach gave me everything that had to be done, but I did it all on my own,” he explains.

“The day of the test arrives and what you have to do is let yourself go, enjoy everything you have trained,” says Benjamín, who even emphasizes that despite his amateur status he made a “quite decent” time of 12 and a half hours, and that he could even have done it in less time, but a “drop” in the foot race made him reduce the speed.

Benjamín Perdomo al cruzar la línea de meta del Ironman
Benjamín Perdomo crossing the finish line of the Ironman

Regarding the course of the race, Benjamín assures that swimming “is impressive”, since there are about 2,000 people who jump into the water at the same time, although he acknowledges that he “did not notice” since swimming was his strong point. “Then comes the bicycle, 180 kilometers that you are meeting people and enjoying, and then in the foot race you try to maintain a constant rhythm that allows you to endure all the time,” he explains.

Benjamín Perdomo makes special emphasis on the need for participants to remain emotionally stable: “Throughout the race you go through a lot of stages, you may see yourself strong in a section of the bicycle but at another moment the head works in another way. The Ironman takes you to a lot of extremes.”

In addition, Benjamín Perdomo emphasizes the importance of the wind in the Lanzarote Ironman, one of the main reasons why it is considered “one of the toughest in the world.” “The climbs on the bicycle do not affect you so much because of the slope, which is not so high, but it is the wind that makes you slow down,” he explains.

“I will do the Ironman again when my children grow up”, assures Perdomo, who is not satisfied with a single Ironman finisher medal. And it is that he points out that, despite the hardness of the test, personal satisfaction covers all the sacrifice of an entire year. “It is one of the greatest joys you can have, it is very exciting,” says Benjamín.

From not knowing what an Ironman consists of, to finishing five with just 26 years old

Domingo Vilavert is a young man who at just 28 years old has finished no more and no less than five Lanzarote Ironmans, in the editions of 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Shortly before doing the first one, Domingo did not even know what the test consisted of.

“I worked in a bicycle shop in Playa Blanca, and I had the opportunity to go one year as a mechanic for the Ironman. After being there from six in the morning until six in the afternoon I said that I had to do that sometime in my life, and that's how it all started,” explains Vilavert.

From that moment on, he started with triathlon training. Although he was always linked to the world of cycling, he was unaware of the hardness of swimming and the subsequent marathon.

In addition to being a pentafinisher of the Ironman, he has finished the 70.3 in Lanzarote on three occasions, which reduces the distance of all the tests by half, managing to finish in second position in one of the editions, which allowed him to participate in the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in South Africa.

In fact, Vilavert did his first Ironman after finishing his first 70.3. “When I finished it I said: I'm ready”, explains the young athlete, who assures that the Ironman has something “special” that has made him repeat up to five times.

“Everyone who does an Ironman tells you the day before the test that they are not going to do another one in their life. However, when he finishes it he tells you that he will do it again next year”, assures Vilavert.

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Domingo Vilavert in the bicycle test

The young athlete from Lanzarote maintains that, despite the hardness of the training to prepare for an Ironman, when you cross the finish line “you see the reward of the work done”. “You see your family and friends helping, supporting and giving you strength, it is very exciting,” he adds.

“I'm not good at swimming, cycling or running. But I don't know why triathlon is good for me”, says Domingo Vilavert, although that phrase is not his, but he paraphrases one of the most successful triathletes in Spain and two-time champion of the Lanzarote Ironman, Eneko Llanos.

Of the five Lanzarote Ironmans that Domingo Vilavert has managed to finish, he himself assures that if he had to keep one it would be the first one, the one he did in 2014. “Being a finisher for the first time is indescribable, there are no words to express what you feel. The time didn't matter, but it was very satisfying,” he explains.

Likewise, Vilavert emphasizes the hardness of the Lanzarote Ironman, and details some of the complicated situations that he has had to live throughout the five editions that he has played. “I have an average of 11 and a half hours in the Ironmans I have done, but the second one I did I finished in almost 14 hours,” says the athlete, and he assures that he was “almost 30 kilometers walking”, given the level of fatigue and tiredness he had in the final part of the Ironman.

“My head didn't understand that it was going to be so hard and that I had to save strength, I spent a lot on the bike because I saw that the numbers didn't add up and I got to the marathon, and that pays off,” says the young athlete, although he assures that at no time did he consider abandoning the test. “If I ever retire from a test it is because I will not have legs to continue walking and neither arms to continue crawling”, he adds.

Vilavert assures that the Lanzarote Ironman “is cruel in all sectors” and that “it puts you in your place at any moment”. “You get into the water and it is rare that there is no swell. You go to the bicycle and you can find a very strong sun in Playa Blanca and find yourself dehydrated, and then get to the north with cold and wind in the Mirador del Río. Then you go down to do the marathon and you have to run with the humidity, the heat and the wind”, he details.

Domingo Olivert
Domingo Vilavert

Although Domingo Vilavert will not be able to participate in the 2022 edition for work reasons, he assures that his goal is to run, at least, “a couple more Ironmans”. “My goal is to run a World Championship in Hawaii, and if I can't this year, I'll try next year”, he adds.

The young athlete also encourages the people of Lanzarote of all ages to prepare for an Ironman, but emphasizes that they must do it “prepared”, so that it becomes an “enjoyment” throughout the course of the test.

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