Pushing oneself to the limit – and beyond

There are only 14 women out of 250 participants in the Israman triathlon competition. What drives them to take part in one of the most punishing distance races in the world?

By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
Cid Carver, the youngest participant in the full Israman course this year (photo credit: NIR AMOS)
Cid Carver, the youngest participant in the full Israman course this year
(photo credit: NIR AMOS)
It’s described as tough, cold and lonely.
Most of us would run away from those kinds of conditions.
Yet close to 2,000 people from 25 countries are running – and swimming and cycling – as fast as they can to the Israman Garmin triathlon in Eilat on January 27-28. (Israman is not a branded Ironman event but it’s an identical competition.) Considered one of the 10 hardest distance races in the world because of the terrain, the full Israman course is 226 kilometers: 3.8 km. of swimming, 180 km.
of biking and 42.2 km. of running. Participants face 3,400 meters of elevation while biking and a brutal 900-meter downhill run. There’s also a half course, a kids’ course and an option for three athletes to split the full course.
Each male and female winner in the full Israman will receive NIS 10,000 – or half that amount if they don’t complete the course within 10:59:59 hours for men and 12:59:59 hours for women.
Second-place winners get NIS 5,000, and third place NIS 3,000.
The odds are much better for the women simply because they are so few.
Only 14 women are registered for the full Israman out of about 250 participants.
However, it’s not the possible prize money that drives them. Their motivations are variations on the singular theme of pushing personal limits.
“The people who do this know they will suffer, that it will hurt and be hard, but that is exactly why we do it – to see what we are truly capable of,” explains Cid Carver of Ramat Hasharon, who at 28 is the youngest participant in the full Israman course this year.
“It is my fifth year going to the Eilat Israman. There is something truly special about this event and course – starting the swim in the dark in the flat Red Sea, then cycling up into the desert along the Egyptian border as the sun rises behind you over Jordan,” she says.
Limor Hagani, a 43-year-old mother, is undertaking the full Israman course for the first time (photo credit: Courtesy)
Limor Hagani, a 43-year-old mother, is undertaking the full Israman course for the first time (photo credit: Courtesy)
“The wind is mean and the sun is strong. You’re never sure if you are hot or cold. It's silent, because unlike other races, there aren’t crowds cheering you on.” The rules forbid anyone to accompany a participant except during the last few meters before the finish line at Royal Beach.
“This event is a mental battle, and you are the only one who decides if you finish or not,” says Carver, who readily admits to shedding tears of pain during her first two Israman races.
“You have to be mentally strong to do this; it is lonely and hard.”
On the other hand, everyone on her Trihard training team from Herzliya will be in Eilat – along with her boyfriend and his family. Her boyfriend photographs her underwater.
“It’s not about hearing them cheering you on but about knowing they’re out there,” says Carver, who spends 15 to 20 hours a week training with Trihard and with a private coach.
“My dad was at my Ironman competition in Lake Placid, which took me 13 hours, and he said the most exciting 30 seconds were the moments he saw me. Knowing he was there made such a difference – even if it was just a few seconds.”
Carver says her participation in triathlons has been critical to her integration into Israeli society since arriving in 2011 from Cleveland, Ohio.
“A lot of American olim say it’s so hard to make Israeli friends. But all my friends are into sports and for the most part they’re all Israeli,” says Carver.
“Sports are what make me feel most like me, and this made the transition into Israeli life comfortable for me.”
The marketing manager at Upright Technologies in Tel Aviv adds that her athletic pursuits also have given her a strong business network because “Ironman and triathlon is the new golf.”
Just don’t call her “Ironwoman” or worse, “Iron Girl.” The latter is the name of a sprint competition for women sponsored by Ironman.
“Whether you are a man or a woman, you are an Ironman at the finish line,” says Carver. “There is no such thing as ‘Ironwoman’ and I think it is a demeaning thing to say. I work and train as much as the men and we start and finish the exact same race and distance.”
This will be the first full Israman for Limor Hagani, 43, of Herzliya, mother of Raz, Ron and Roei.
“After the birth of my youngest son 10 years ago, I stayed home with him for a year and a half. Then I woke up one morning and decided it was time to change my habits and nutrition, to have a healthy life,” says Hagani, who works at Arkia airlines.
As she lost weight and started feeling healthier, her devotion to fitness quickly escalated. She competed in a local women’s triathlon and then the Tiberias marathon after only eight months of training. “My husband, Lior, was amazed at the change in me and at the goals that I set for myself,” she says.
Four years ago she joined the Zone 3 training group and began participating in triathlons.
“When I turned 40, my birthday present to myself was to do the Ironman in Frankfurt, and I finished in 11:28 – 10th place in the women’s category.”
In 2016 she competed in the Copenhagen Ironman and in the first Israel Ultraman, a three-day triathlon that consists of 10 km. of swimming, 420 km.
biking and 84 km. of running.
As for the Israman, she says with a smile, “However I do, I will be satisfied.”
The Israeli woman most likely to win the full Israman is Antonina Reznikov, who took the title last year and broke the course record, coming in 35 minutes ahead of the second-place winner.
Antonina Reznikov, who broke the course record in 2016, is the odds-on favorite to win the full Israman again this year(photo credit: Courtesy)
Antonina Reznikov, who broke the course record in 2016, is the odds-on favorite to win the full Israman again this year(photo credit: Courtesy)
Now 34, Reznikov has been training for only four years but was a teenage cycling champ in her native Ukraine.
She caught the eye of fellow Eilat resident Avi Haim, then a trainer with the Isrotel Sports Club, while biking in the hilly city.
“I saw how she moved on the bicycle; she rode the hill like it was flat,” Haim says. “She has something I never saw before.”
Under Haim’s tutelage, Reznikov began doing the cycling third of triathlons and did so well that she learned how to swim so she could compete that third by herself. “Now she’s one of the fastest women swimmers in Israel,” says Haim, who has been training only Reznikov for the past 18 months.
The single mother of two took first place in the South Africa Ironman competition two months after Israman last year and won a spot twice in the Hawaii Ironman.
“It’s very difficult in Hawaii because of the temperature and the wind, but Israman is even tougher,” says Haim.
“The toughest women do it because it’s such a special atmosphere.”
Lisa Galfand Trudler, a 54-year-old mother of three from Kadima, is looking forward to her third full Israman, in which she is the oldest registered woman.
“I like challenging myself with endurance as opposed to speed,” she says. “I can run fairly fast but I want to pick a pace I can keep and carry through.”
The holistic mind-body therapist participated in sports such as fencing and synchronized swimming as a teenager and adult, but only started running in 2009.
“I felt it was time to get into shape. I went from walking to jogging to running and about six months later I found myself at the half marathon at the Maccabiah Games. And about six months later I ran a 50-km. race,” says Trudler.
She took swimming lessons to balance her upper and lower body strength, and then a friend remarked that if she added biking she could do the Women’s Triathlon.
“So I did it and I was hooked,” she says.
That was in 2010. In summer 2012, she undertook her first Ironman distance triathlon, which involved swimming 3.8 km. in the Kinneret, biking 180 km. and then running a marathon.
“I trained with a team of people going to Ironman in Austria and that’s when I got the idea of doing one in Israel by myself,” says Trudler, who biked from Metulla to Eilat, swam 10 km., and ran 50 km. (with a day's rest in between each event) for her 50th birthday.
“I just like to be out there and do the distances,” she says. “It’s all about the mental and physical training – all that swimming and biking and running – so the final event is like the party you’ve been getting ready for all that time. It’s a combination of a commitment to yourself and to the people out there.”


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