Age-group athlete, Charlotte Raubenheimer, finished her first full distance IRONMAN at home. Raubenheimer had signed up for the IRONMAN African Championship in hopes of raising funds for her friend who was in desperate need of a wheelchair. With South Africa going into national lockdown due to COVID-19, her IRONMAN African Championship dream had to be postponed.
With IRONMAN athletes known for their perseverance, she did not let this get in her way. So, on Sunday, March 29, when she was supposed to line up at Hobie Beach for the start of the IRONMAN African Championship, Raubenheimer lined up in her back garden by her swimming pool. Her sights were set on a 3.8km swim, a 180.2km indoor bike in her house and a 42km run around the garden.
“I had signed up for the IRONMAN African Championship in hopes of raising R70 000 for Phillip Jansen van Rensburg, a resident at the Cheshire Homes in Nelson Mandela Bay, who was in desperate need of a wheelchair. Phillip is a friend of mine who has been passing my house for seven years, he is always very friendly and stops for a quick chat. I got worried when I stopped seeing him and it turned out that his wheelchair (which he operates with his chin) had a broken battery. I was devastated so I decided to do something about it,” said Raubenheimer.
Raubenheimer then went on a daunting task of doing an IRONMAN at home, “Honestly, this was just all a spur of the moment thing. This was just all God orchestrated, I’m sure he planned this whole thing because I never planned it. My plan was to do the IRONMAN African Championship. When it was postponed, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it November because I was using the IRONMAN race to raise funds, so it wasn’t my original plan to do it from home. The thought only occurred on Saturday afternoon when my swim group started posting images on things they were using to do a stationary swim at home. When I saw this, I asked my husband to see if I can do that. When that worked, I realised that I could carry on with my swim training. Then I randomly thought, let me just do the full distance IRONMAN the next day from home. It wasn’t planned.”
“Running was the toughest. I only had 133m of space to run on, I ended up making 1 580 turns. Luckily, my 11-year-old son, joined me for a portion of the run. The swim was mentally tough as you had to look at the bottom of the pool the whole time.”
Raubenheimer has again proved how resilient IRONMAN athletes are, day by day they prove that anything is possible, “In a time of being locked in and in lockdown it’s important to support each other. We shouldn’t use our lockdown to limit us, we should work with what we have and what’s in front of us. We shouldn’t doubt our abilities or our limitations. Step out in faith and persevere through. Perseverance does pay off if there are limitations involved.”
