Catching up with triathlete Sam Warriner in person is difficult these days, with the 2011 Ironman New Zealand champion spending half of her time overseas training and racing.
The Northern Advocate took the rare opportunity to chat to Warriner, who has just returned home to Whangarei to facilitate her Northland FutureChampions Academy project, after contesting Ironman Germany last week.
Her credible fifth place last weekend in Frankfurt earned her enough points to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii - something Warriner has been striving for since switching from racing Olympic Distance triathlon to the longer 70.3 and full Ironman distance last year.
"The plan was to go overseas and make sure I qualified for Hawaii, which I have done, so I'm pretty pleased," she said. Warriner, who turns 40 on Monday, started her qualifying process for the October 8 Kona-based event at the start of the year, with no points to her name.
"Most of the other athletes had points from competing at Kona last year, which they carried over towards this year's qualifying. However, I had my heart operation at the end of last year and didn't race at all, so I started from scratch this year."
Four months after a heart operation to correct a racing heart, Warriner stormed home to claim the women's Ironman New Zealand title in Taupo, which started her Kona qualifying points tally.
She then had a second and two third placings in 70.3 races in the US, before her fifth placing at Frankfurt. Her results saw her claim the 25th - and lucky last, qualifying spot in the elite women's division to race at Kona.
"I was really happy with my fifth place in the German Ironman. It was raced in tough conditions and it was very cold on the bike, which was something I didn't anticipate. But mental toughness got me through on the day. It was the strongest field an Ironman race has fielded this year and to get fifth in only my second attempt at the distance is pretty pleasing," she said.
After her 10-day break in New Zealand - organising the academy - Warriner will head to Central Queensland to race in a new event, the Yeppoon 70.3 on August 14. From there, it is on to Hawaii for a two-week training block, before heading to Texas for more training and to race in the Syracuse 70.3 during September. She will arrive in Kona three weeks ahead of the race.
