Cal Poly students compete in local Iron Man
Some Cal Poly students pushed themselves to extreme physical heights last month in Morro Bay.
“I had trained as much as I had to, I, I was in very good shape and I knew like it wasn’t gonna hurt it,” environmental earth and soil science senior Sean Moran said. “I put in all the hurt already in the training and this was just gonna be showing off all that hurt that I put down and then it could just be fun and it was, it was so much fun.”
Moran was one of 1800 athletes that competed in the 2023 Ironman 70.3 Morro Bay on May 20.
Participants swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, and then run a half marathon —13.1 miles — and. This is a half Ironman or a 70.3, according to Moran.
Competitors swam through the cove in Morro Bay, biked along Highway 1 and then finish the race running from the base of Morro Rock through the Embarcadero.
“I feel like I did pretty well…I haven’t checked the results yet because I don’t have my phone,” said business administration senior Ben Schlesier, who competed in the race.
Schlesier was surprised with some good news after checking his phone.
“Oh, yeah, so proud my roommate qualified for the world championships,” Moran said. “So now two of my roommates are going to go to Finland in August and compete at the World Championships at this distance, and I’m so proud of them.”
Moran said he enjoys training with his roommate, Schliesser, because they push each other.
Schliesser finished with a time of 4:32:08 and came in 39th place overall.
“I know that the word triathlon is scary and these distances are, they seem just not possible to humans,” Schliesser said. “However, like all it takes is a support group and, the discipline and getting out there and then once you start enjoying it, you start to realize like how rewarding it can be to, to push your body and train for a goal and like just be proud of yourself after after succeeding and whatever your definition of success is, it’s, it’s really rewarding and like I, I recommend everyone does some sort of kind of crazy competition because it’s, it’s really fun.”
To see the results of the 2023 ironman 70.3 Morro Bay click HERE.
