Sixth Annual Iron Girl Triathalon at Centennial Park Sunday

This Sunday, 2,400 women from 25 different states will descend on Centennial Park for the sixth annual running of the Athleta Iron Girl Columbia Triathalon.

The race will consist of a 3.3 mile run, 17.5 mile bike ride and a .62 mile swim across Centennial Lake. The first one to reach the finish line will win a $4,999 prize purse.

The annual event is produced by TriColumbia, and is considered the largest Iron Girl Triathalon event in the country, said spokeswoman Kristen Seabolt.

She said the all-female event is primarily about empowering women to live healthier lifestyles and to provide a way for them to support one another in pursuit of the finish line. 

‘I really can do this.’

Stephanie Blades of Columbia will be among those competing on Sunday.

She said this is her fourth year participating in the event, but the experience has been much different this year. Blades gave birth to her daughter last January. 

After recovering, she set out training for this year’s triathalon, something the new mom said she found somewhat challenging.

“I felt like I was doing this all over again for the first time,” she said.

She said this year is also different, because she has experienced a kinship with other moms participating in the event.

“It’s a way to connect with other women who are doing it all,” she said. “Women who are working full time, raising a family, being wives and trying to find something that’s theirs and makes them stronger women for their families.”

Another Columbia resident set to compete this weekend is Debi Vreeland. She has been training for this event for nearly three months, and said completing the race will be a huge accomplishment.

Vreeland said six years ago she weighed 327 pounds.

Since that time, she has lost over 180 pounds, she said. Last November she decided to set another goal--to complete the Iron Girl Triathalon with a time above the bottom 10 percent of participants.

She said she was never an active person, but over the last few years and particularily since she began training for this event, she has come to enjoy living healthier.

 “It was a huge transition for me to go from just a regular person to kind of an athlete,” she said. “But it [Iron Girl] drove me to my goal.”

Since she started training for the event, the 51-year-old has lost about 60 pounds, she said.

 “I think knowing that I have a deadline helped,” she said. “And as I started putting together the three pieces [of the race], I started saying to myself, ‘I really can do this’.” 

Columbia is the site for the 2012 Iron Girl Columbia Half Marathon

Joan Benoit Samuelson, the official spokesperson for the 2012 Iron Girl Columbia Half Marathon, said that event is scheduled for next April in downtown Columbia.

The event will benefit the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center at .

Benoit Samuelson, the first Gold Medalist in the Women’s Olympic Marathon, said the Iron Girl events help empower women to reach their own personal goals.

"I think Iron Girl really gives women the opportunity to break out and discover their own talents, especially athletically," she said.

Registration for the Half Marathon opens today at 9 a.m. For more details on this event, or to register, visit the TriColumbia website. 

The Athleta Iron Girl Triathalon begins at 7 a.m. Sunday with a post-race party held from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.