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In conversation with Yvonne van Vlerken
By Timothy Moore
8/5/2008 |
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For the first time in any iron-distance event, four women finished in less than 9 hours in Roth, Germany on July 13.
What’s more, in a matter of just eight days last month, on three different race courses in Europe, eight of the world’s best iron-women confirmed their membership in the elite Sub Nine Club. They have set the stage for the fastest starting line ever in Kona this October.
The race in Roth marked the third time in 12 months that Yvonne van Vlerken crossed a iron finish line in less than 9 hours. Her unexpected approach of the world record in Roth in 2007 - she was 1 minute and 2 seconds off the mark - can rightly be seen as a catalyst for the recent surge in speed among the women’s field.
In fact, the women in Team TBB - among them Chrissie Wellington, Erika Csomor and Belinda Granger - help motivate themselves in training with thoughts of putting `Yvonne VV` in her place. It’s a huge compliment to what van Vlerken has accomplished.
Including her iron debut in Roth in 2007, van Vlerken has won three iron-distance races, and she was second in her fourth, which came early in her season when, as she says, her top priority was to secure a spot to Kona.
While new to iron-distance racing, the 29-year-old has a very solid race CV including a World Duathlon Championship in 2006. She has raced and won events across Europe for more than six years. She’s preparing now for the ITU World Long-Course Championship which is being held in Almere, The Netherlands later this month.
Van Vlerken was surprised by her performance in Roth in 2007. She wasn’t aware how close she had been to Paula Newby-Fraser’s record. She didn’t intend to repeat that mistake.
"I didn’t feel any pressure. I was confident that I could win,’’ she says of her preparation for Roth a month ago. "I just knew that I could win and break the world record.’’
Van Vlerken, who has been dubbed the Flying Blonde Dutchwoman in her homeland, was more determined than ever to become a better athlete. Her partner Austrian age-grouper Thomas Vonach has helped her revamp her entire training and racing strategy.
First, Vonach got van Vlerken to hire Mario Huys as her coach. He’s been coaching Vonach for years. Huys, a former professional triathlete and Olympic rowing competitor, is the former coach of 1996 Ironman World Champion Luc van Lierde and Kate Allen, who won a gold medal in triathlon at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
After more than seven years of 40-hour plus training weeks, van Vlerken averages 22-23 hours a week in the pool, on her bike or running, peaking at 30 hours three to four weeks ahead of key races. She now trains harder but also has more time to recover between sessions. She gets two to three massages a week to keep injuries at bay.
Van Vlerken says she has swapped volume for quality. And in the process she also started to use a heart rate monitor and a power gauge on her bike to get the most out of her training sessions, all recorded on a spreadsheet for analysis by Huys and Vonach. She has dropped long slow runs, and instead runs at tempo every time she steps out the door.
Despite the technological additions and more consistent fitness level tests, when it comes to racing, she says it’s all about "feeling’’. And in Roth she felt ready.
At the start line, she was 5kg leaner than a year earlier. Vonach reworked her diet, paring back the amount of carbohydrates she was consuming. She is a compact athlete, the result of years of leading as many as 20 aerobic classes a week and taking part in gymnastics as a kid. She played competitive soccer when she was younger.
In Roth a month ago, van Vlerken says it wasn’t until she reached the 35km mark during the run that she was able to relax. Before then, van Vlerken and Csomor raced almost side by side. "The last kilometer was really great.’’
Van Vlerken smashed the previous record by more than five minutes, stopping the clock at 8:45:48. Ironman legend Newby-Fraser has a record of consistency and dominance, especially in Hawaii, that seems unlikely ever to be matched - she set her record of 8:50:53 in Roth in 1994.
While van Vlerken has the confidence of a champion, she admits there was one point where she struggled.
At about 160km into the bike, she was cycling up the course’s toughest hill. Her nearest competitor throughout the race, Csomor of Hungary, made a move to get ahead.
"It was the only moment that I had some doubts.’’
Van Vlerken said she was able to refocus after hearing a friend in the crowd yelling encouragement at her, reinforcing in her mind that she was capable of getting back in front and winning the race.
Van Vlerken describes it as the "key moment’’ in her race. If she had let that bit of doubt seep further into her mind, she may well have seen Csomor take control.
It was a watershed moment not just for van Vlerken. Csomor finished second in Roth and is now the second-fastest iron woman ever. Both Gina Ferguson and Belinda Granger went Sub Nine in Roth too.
Earlier on the same day Sandra Wallenhorst, Bella Comerford and Edith Niederfriniger raced in Austria with Sub Nine finishes. A week earlier in Frankfurt, Wellington entered the club too.
There’s a new competitive rivalry that is driving the current generation of athletes forward.
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Timothy Moore is a Vancouver-based editor and journalist. He set up a blog - http://sub-nine.blogspot.com/ - to keep track of the world’s fastest iron women. He first wrote about the women’s assault on the world record in the June issue of Triathlete magazine.
Photos 1 and 2 Credit: Norbert Wilhelmi
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