10Ironwomen: breaking down barriers in long distance triathlon
Triathlon is diversifying, but it remains a sport dominated by the white middle-aged male demographic. In this blog we look at the full distance racing, where the disparity among participants is greatest, and how one group of women are on a mission to change it.
An Ironman is widely considered to be the toughest one-day sporting races in the world, consisting of a 3.8km swim, a 180km bike and a 42.2km run. Despite the name, it is in fact open to both men and women, but there is a staggering unequalness in participants. In 2018, 2500 athletes took part in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii; 28% were female while 72% were male. At Ironman Barcelona that same year, only 11% of the competitors were female. A group of ten London-based women saw this and decided they wanted to act on it by taking on the challenge themselves and shouting all about it. They signed up for the 2019 race; 10Ironwomen were born.
Who are 10Ironwomen?
The initial idea to do an Ironman came from Sarah, who says “I was first inspired to do an Ironman after hearing about the experience of another woman who I met through Run Dem Crew, who had recently completed one. She talked about the huge gender imbalance in the race, and how more women should believe they too could complete an event like an Ironman. She hadn't completed a marathon before entering which I found so inspiring! Even though at that point, I hadn't been on a bike since I was 12, she made me feel I could do it. I bought a bike and signed up for an Olympic triathlon with Row. After that first triathlon, even though it really highlighted my weakness on the bike which was quite scary, I thought there was a chance, with the right training, just maybe, I could do an Ironman. But I was too terrified to do it alone. Row, Elena and Lucy were the first to put their hands up and say yes to joining me. Word spread, and before we knew if there were 10 of us! We felt so lucky to have each other, and all agreed we wouldn't be doing it without the support of the group. We wanted to inspire other women on a bigger scale, and provide a sense of community to those who might not be as lucky as us, so the ten of us set up 10Ironwomen and started to document our training through Instagram.”
This is where I discovered the group! I followed their training, tracked them on race day and found myself with tears in my eyes watching the videos of these strangers crossing the finish line. I felt truly inspired to try it so when they sent out a message a week later asking who wanted to join in 2020, I bit the bullet and joined the group. 31 of us signed up that year!
Our 30-week training plan started in March with enthusiastic group sessions and socials, until covid hit and that was the end of that. But training didn’t stop with the hope that the world might be fine by October and the race would still go ahead; Thursday rides became a Zwift-and-Zoom and our catch-ups went virtual. By summer we were reaching the end of the build phase and entering peak, meaning 4-5hr rides and 2-3hr runs. With the lifting of restrictions, we were still anticipating a race in October, so a lot of us were still putting in our all. But with 49 days to go, the situation got worse and it was inevitably cancelled.
Eight of the crew decided not to put all the hard work to waste and did their own DIY race in Brighton, planned by Bella and with the original crew on support duty. As if the year hadn’t thrown enough bad luck at us all it was the wettest day of the year! All 8 finished – massively proud! Because of all the chaos of covid, we only ended up with 12 of us racing in 2021... my race report from Ironman Barcelona is up on the blog!
On our return from Calella, we had a very lovely medal party in London where we got to share our experiences with people who were interested or tempted to join us the next time. It was mad to be standing in the shoes of the people I'd looked up to two years previously!
2022 has been a successful year; we had a huge group of nearly 80 women join us at the Cotswold Classic race in July, the weekly London social runs are going strong, I set up a little group of keen beans looking for training partners in Cardiff / South Wales, four of the 2020 recruits have founded a scheme for providing financial support to those who can't afford to race (Fund Her Tri UK - check it out here!), and two of us went to Kona repping the 10Ironwomen flag.
The focus now is on building the community we’ve already established: women supporting women. Leading group runs and social rides, breaking down barriers, teaching yoga, offering bike-buying advice, designing merch, spreading the name… encouraging more women to push themselves and take on their own challenges, whether that is completing an Ironman or finishing a sprint. The 2023 cohort even have a free training plan, thanks to some wonderful coaches who've come on board with the 10Ironwomen mission. If you're interested in following the stories or getting involved, find @10Ironwomen on Instagram!
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