When two strangers met the day before the World Championships for a hybrid fitness racing competition, they didn’t expect to land the top spot.
Waihī Beach’s Beau Vipond and Alice McGreal of Ireland teamed up in the nick of time to compete as a pair for the Deadly Dozen World Championship held in London last month.
The athletic duo focussed hard on “giving it our absolute all” and took out the first place win for the 16-29-year-old Female Pairs and a fifth place spot overall, Beau said.
In another “last minute call-up”, 26-year-old Beau said she also joined the women’s relay and snuck in another fifth place overall and second place in the age group for 30-34 year olds.
“It was pretty surreal,” she told The Profile.
The race itself consists of participants running 12 400-metre laps, and in-between each lap, participants complete a set of exercises at either a cardio or weight station.
“It could be lunges or bear crawls or a goblet squat with a weight or an overhead weight plank carry,” Beau said. “I think we did pretty well considering the circumstances,” she said.
Up until August, Beau was set to head to the World Champs with training partner Cassie McArthur – but due to an injury, Cassie had to forfeit her spot. “I had to make a call on whether I was going to compete or not,” Beau said.
It just so happened that in the 11th hour, another competitor Alice McGreal, who was based in London, reached out to Beau and said she was set to compete in a relay at the World Championships.
“And she [Alice] kind of put up her hand, being like, ‘I kind of think I can do the times that you’re hoping to run if you need a partner’. So I just jumped on the plane and met her 24 hours before the race,” Beau said.
The athletes had to put on their game faces.
“Our strategy was [to] go hard and hold on as long as we could. So we went into it just like hitting it from the start line and just giving it our absolute all. You know, we couldn’t do a strategy of who’s stronger or what because we genuinely just didn’t know. So I think the main thing was just communication, like right throughout the race, we just had to keep comms up the whole time in terms of if one of us was feeling a little bit flat, the other one jumping in and kind of trying to pick up the pieces and just get through to the end.”
Beau, who is a project manager, pilates instructor and studio manager, said support from friends and family helped champion her along. “I think knowing that everyone from home was backing me was literally my key focus through the race,” she said.
There was also in-person support from the sidelines from her aunt and uncle, who are based in Amsterdam, and also her coach, Chas Clark, of The Lab in Tauranga, who also competed at the World Champs.
Beau said fitness spaces Beach Pilates and LitoreFit were “instrumental to my success” through their guidance, knowledge and support.
Any time there was a point where she felt like it was too hard or that she might not be able to keep up with the tempo, Beau leaned into her thoughts: “I don’t actually have time for the self-doubt”, she said.
“I need to push for the people who are backing me. That was a pretty huge focus when I was actually competing, [I] was just doing it for everyone at home.”
It was evident Beau didn’t take anything for granted.
“I think it’s just really cool to see New Zealand on a global stage. We’re pretty fierce competitors at that level. I’ve still got to give it up to Cassie because she trained so hard with me and I wouldn’t have got to the training level that I was at without her.”
At the centre of everything, Beau was very clear about what inspired her to train.
“I think deep at the crux of why I train is when I get to the age of 70 I still want to be an able bodied, well rounded person,” Beau said.
“At the crux of it I’m training for longevity. I think when you’re surrounded by like minded people these opportunities arise where you are suddenly able to do a dream that you never even thought could be a possibility.”
By DAVIDDA HIKATANGATA
