Can Jelle Geens Stay Patient In His IRONMAN Debut?

In a race that no less an authority than three-time Kona champion Patrick Lange is calling the most competitive full-distance race outside a world championship, Jelle Geens is making his full-distance debut. The two-time IRONMAN 70.3 world champion appears to be relaxed and ready as he prepares for Saturday’s big day. We caught up with the Belgian star after yesterday’s press conference:

Last time we spoke, you were fresh off winning your second World Championship. Now you’re getting ready for your first full distance event. Why? You’re so good at the other stuff.

Well, I want to prove to myself that I can also do the IRONMAN. In the end, Kona is the biggest race — maybe outside of the Olympics — in our sport, and I want to be successful there as well. I’ve now won 70.3 Worlds twice, and those were really cool experiences, but for me it got to a point where going back solely for another world title, while cool, wasn’t enough. I want to win Kona at some point, so I thought this would be a good year to start my journey into Ironman.

It feels like last year you had the big move to Australia, and this year you’ve got the move up to Ironman racing. What on earth are you going to do next year?

I don’t know — maybe ultra trails or ultra triathlons! No, I think for now we’re good. This step into IRONMAN might take a while to really reach my full potential. Everyone says the jump from 70.3 to Ironman is bigger than from Olympic distance to 70.3, so I’m fully aware it might take me some time. But for now, we stay in Australia and keep going for IRONMANs every year. We’re still doing 70.3s as well — Nice is still a big focus.

It’d be pretty awesome to get the three-peat there.

Yeah, no man has ever done it — only Taylor Knibb and Daniela Ryf, I think. So it would be cool to put myself in the company of those two legends.

I watched Jan Frodeno do his first full distance race and on the run he was either running something like 3:15 pace or walking. I hope that’s not you.

I’m quite confident it won’t be! But I guess what I’m saying is it’s really hard to go slow enough. I was doing sessions after Geelong running even sub-3:30, which is a very quick Ironman marathon pace, and it just felt so easy — basically like a quick jog. But I’m sure that after kilometer 30 it will be a whole different world and running those 3:30s will be damn hard. That’s the biggest piece of advice I’ve heard, and I have to really pay attention to it — just be patient. It’s a long day. Even on the bike, in 70.3s we just race full gas, but here I have to be smart. Every move has to be thought through, because in the end it can bite you back. So yeah, I don’t want to see too many 3:15s on that run.

How hard is it to be patient for you?

Well, I guess we’ll see! It’s really hard for me, to be honest, even in 70.3s. In Geelong, for example, my only goal was to follow Hayden Wilde on the bike, and I did bury myself a bit there — it might have been smarter to not always go with his attacks and ride a bit more smoothly. But we’ll see on Saturday. I think executing that patience well will be very critical for me.

You’ve also got a nice little duel going on with Kristian (Blummenfelt) over the last little while. Can you even think about racing that way going into something like this, or do you just have to focus on yourself?

In IRONMAN you always have to focus on yourself a bit — you can’t just race the race. You still have to stay within yourself, and if you’re still there with 15k to go, then it becomes a race and a battle. Kristian is in great shape — he’s proven it basically all year. In Geelong he ran really, really fast. But in the end, my goal going into this race is the same as always, which is winning. To get the best out of myself, though, I do have to race within myself, be smart and patient. I won’t race like a chicken without a head, as the Dutch saying goes.

Is it exciting or a little scary coming into something like this?

A bit of both, for me. It’s exciting — I love racing a big field, I love finally doing an Ironman, and the distance excites me. But it also scares me. I’ve never biked 180 km on a TT bike, I’ve never run a 42K, and I’m not sure I’ve even swum 3.8 km straight either. So there’s going to be a lot of new territory — new feelings during the race, for sure, with some highs and lows. That does scare me a little. But, in the end, my coach (Ben Reszel) has prepared a lot of people for IRONMAN races, and I’m sure he’s prepared me well for it.

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