Konstantin Peev ’22: ‘IRONMAN truly was a once in a lifetime experience. Everyone needs to try it at least once.’

The Race

IRONMAN 70.3 is a triathlon, consisting of 1.9 kilometers of swimming, 90 kilometers of cycling on a road (mostly hilly), and approximately 21.1 kilometers of running. Prior to his participation in this year’s edition in Slovenian Istria, where the swimming takes place in the Mediterranean and the biking route offers amazing views, ACS senior Konstantin Peev had been preparing for three and a half months. And still, he considers it the most physically and mentally challenging thing he had ever done in his life. In fact, he had to fight serious technical difficulties with his bike for a good chunk of the race, but still managed to finish within the allowed time limit.

How It Began

Konstantin’s interest in challenges of this kind began last year, during the first lockdown - he ended up deciding that sedentary life is not something he could put up with, so he started running a few times a week. After doing this consistently for a bit over a year, and participating in the 2020 edition of the Wizz Air Sofia Half Marathon, Konstantin wanted to try something more challenging, so he turned over to triathlons.

How It Combines with School

According to Konstantin, sports and challenges of the IRONMAN 70.3 kind can actually be very helpful with life in school - there are a lot of benefits. “Spending an hour or a bit more training can be of great help with stress relief, now that we are seniors and all the pressure is on us. Besides, sports and physical challenges teach consistency and proper time management - two extremely important things when it comes to training for an IRONMAN 70.3 and also priceless qualities when it comes to school and doing school work. Everyone needs to try it at least once in their lifetime.”

The Next Challenge

Next, Konstantin will be improving his Olympic distance triathlon time and plans to compete with the best in his age group in the coming years. And we will be rooting for him!