Name: Deon Louw
Age: 48
Occupation: Scrum Master at Lincoln Financial Group
Years doing triathlon? 3
First Triathlon? Mission Man Sprint Triathlon (Burlington, NC)
Your favorite triathlon? Beach 2 Battleship Half-Ironman distance
Meal the night before race? Fettuccini Alfrado with fresh salad with balsamic vinaigrette
Pre-Race Meal? Eggs, Toast, Crackers and Hummus, Banana and Coffee
Race Nutrition? Perpetuem powder in my water bottles (1 bottle per hour), alternating GU gels and Honey Stingers every 30 minutes
Favorite motivational training song? Extreme Ways by Moby (Jason Bourne movies theme song)
Favorite mantra? I’m always practicing trophy acceptance speeches (although I will never come close). It allows me to focus on positive things like gratitude, family, sacrifices, my health, the joy of competing…
Key Workout? I love cycling, tolerate swimming and detest running. So my favorite workouts are playing with kettleballs and cycling. I only run and swim when I get close to a race.
Best Triathlon training or racing tip? I have 2:
1. Always remember why I started this journey and stay true to myself
2. As long as you’re healthy, your body can do amazing things. So it is better to be under-trained and fresh than over-trained and fatigued.
Triathlon literature or other sources of information? I am a huge fan of Ben Greenfield (his website and podcasts). I’ve been following Ben for almost 2 years and learning about nutrition, supplementation, physical training and body hacking methodologies.
Who inspires you? Any transformational story inspires me. Whether someone was overweight and lost weight, or someone overcame tremendous injury or trauma to complete a race, or someone beat incredible odds to celebrate a victory. Just being on the triathlon journey is inspiring in itself.
Future goal? I have 2 sport-related items on my bucket list:
1. Complete a full Ironman race. This has been a long-time bucket list item for me. I was to accomplish this at IMNC on 10/22/2016. Unfortunately, Hurricane Matthew devastated the coast of NC and the cycling leg had to be shortened by 62 miles meaning the full race will now only be 78.6 miles instead of 140.6 miles. This item will have to be accomplished at a future date when I actually complete the whole 140.6 miles.
2. Ride across America from the West Coast to the East Coast. This will have to wait until I am retired one day.