An XXXL event for an Ironman and Super Triathlete - Sebastien Morineau

at the finish of IronMan 70.3 in Cervia, Italy

 

Writing about sports never gets boring for me. Every athlete has a story, and I find that the real excitement lies not just in what they achieve but in understanding what drives them to do it. I enjoy discovering how people from different backgrounds find their way into a sport, what keeps them going and what they learn about themselves along the way.

Arto Hebler's story particularly interested me because he is only 18 and is already exploring the limits of what he can achieve. A high school student living in Geneva, he has moved from an early interest in running to taking on triathlons, learning from his mistakes and dreaming of bigger challenges.

As far as sports go, he played volleyball regularly till before last summer but was always attracted to running. Living in beautiful Geneva has so many advantages, whether it's the mountains, a lake or the spectacular natural beauty all around, all of which can serve as constant motivation. I cannot imagine how wonderful it must be to grow up with these picture postcard landscapes within easy reach. However, getting out and running regularly is still  a conscious choice. It still needs time management, planning and prioritising to become someone who does sports regularly. So naturally, I'm impressed when a young person does that and discovers what he or she is made of along the way.

The Half - Geneva triathlon with Santiago

Arto says that some years back, at about 16, he randomly ran 21 kms and, somewhere along those years, also ran a marathon on his own, motivated by his father's encouragement and supported by his family throughout the effort. These runs and all his training runs took place in the Salève mountain, also known as Geneva's local mountain. It is located just across the border in France, but it dominates Geneva's skyline and sits a mere 8 to 20 kilometres from the city. He also took part in swimming in cold waters as a sort of challenge. 

Come 2025, he had Santiago, a friend who does triathlons introduce him to the sport. Arto participated in something called a 'découverte triathlon', which means 'discovery triathlon'. It is a short, beginner friendly race format designed specifically for people trying the sport for the very first time. This race involves a 2.5 km run, a 250 m swim and a 10 km bike ride. Arto didn't have anything fancy for this race. Even his cycle was a regular city bike. However, the event made him super excited about the sport. He wanted to train to do more and do better.

Since his friend could help guide him, he concentrated on training all summer. He would do 2-3 training sessions per day and would wake up to days of tiredness brought on by pushing himself to his physical limits. He says that he would fall asleep at the drop of a hat and that his days were also broken up by siestas.

Soon after Arto did another discovery triathlon and found himself finishing 10th overall and 5th in his category. This motivated him further to participate in short distance triathlons, which involve 500 m of swimming, 20 kms of cycling and 5 kms of running. He finished 30th overall among about 150 participants and 15th in his category.

Arto had begun to love what he was doing, and seeing the results of his training only fuelled his enthusiasm further. Of the three disciplines in a triathlon, running was his favourite, followed by cycling and swimming. When winter came around in 2025 and there were no triathlons to participate in, he threw himself into running instead. In his enthusiasm, however, he had overlooked the 10% rule, which recommends not more than a 10% increase in training each week. Predictably, he ended up with leg injuries that kept him from running for 2 to 3 months. He turned to cycling and swimming to stay active and began physiotherapy to help him recover. When he eventually returned to running, he was more cautious, building up his training slowly and gradually this time.

The Half - Geneva triathlon with Santiago

He has also participated in the Course de l'Escalade in Geneva after training and participating in triathlons. This race is Switzerland's largest road running race and one of the most celebrated and festive annual traditions in the city of Geneva. You could consider participating in this race, which will be held on the 5th and 6th of December. escalade.ch 

This year, he did The Half - Geneva triathlon that he finished in 4 hrs 50 mins. At the end of the school year, Arto wanted to do something big to celebrate his year and decided to participate in the Half Ironman.

Discover more about Ironman here: ironman.com or Ironman 70.3 on Wikipedia.

Arto registered for the race before summer, but when summer came, his training was not as intensive as he had anticipated. He also had exciting travel plans, which made him reconsider whether he should participate. The race itself was expensive, and the logistics, the need for the right gear and the travel to the venue all added up to a considerable investment of time and money. His father, however, encouraged him to go ahead with the race. Arto says he managed three weeks of proper triathlon training, with some intensive sessions here and there after that. The event was scheduled to take place in Cervia, Italy, on the 20th of September.

training July 2025

Arto didn't have the best bike, called a 'vélo de contre-la-montre' or 'time-trial bike', which is the ideal triathlon bike for the cycling leg of the race, but he did possess a very good road bike. He also had to organise a transport-friendly, protective cover for the bike, as he would be travelling by bus and train to the event and back. This meant learning how to take parts of his bike apart so that he could pack it into the protective cover for the journey.

On the Friday before the event, which was to take place on Sunday, 20th September,  Arto left Geneva at 5 AM and reached his hotel at 6 PM. He enjoyed a delicious meal of Italian pasta, a dream for a long distance runner loading up on carbohydrates before an event. On Saturday, he ideally should have warmed up and tried each event, but he could only manage a run as he had to get to the place where they were distributing the race BIBs that participants needed to wear during the event. It was race day before he knew it. He had been eating a lot of bread, pasta and cakes to prepare himself for the long hours ahead.

The swim, which takes place in open water and covers 1900 m, is always the first event and was scheduled at 11 AM. Arto says that he's a slow swimmer, so he registered to start at the end, among the trailing groups of the 3000 people participating. Since he had never done such a race, he found himself waiting until about 11:50 before he actually got into the water. The swimmers were being sent off in groups. The people he had seen relaxing while waiting with him became a different kind of group once they were in the water. Everyone tries to swim as close as possible to the buoys. The closer one swims to them, the fewer extra metres one actually swims. Because of this, everyone swims extremely close to each other.

Arto remarks that this race is so important to many participants that they wear large wrist watches to monitor their progress. During the swim, he was knocked at least a couple of times by these watches as they swung past him. He managed a speed of 1 min 50 secs per 100 m.

Then came the first transition zone from swimming to cycling. In a normal triathlon, the bag that the swimmer needs to access to transition into a rider is placed near the bike itself, whereas here, one first needs to reach the bag and collect it. This involves a long 700 m stretch before reaching the cycle. Arto says it took him at least 5 whole minutes to transition, a large part of which was spent pushing his bike out of the area while wearing and running in cycling shoes.

Once he was finally on his bike, he was rewarded with a beautiful ride through picturesque, flat countryside. The 90 km route offered some lovely sights, including flamingos. Arto's only regret was having to battle the wind, which made for a fairly painful ride.

The second transition, from cycling to running, again took 5 minutes, and Arto grew impatient. Eager to make up for lost time, he started too fast, covering the first 10 kms in 40 minutes. But he soon found himself alone, running on very tired legs. He wasn't used to running such distances without friends or family around to support him, and the miles began to take their toll.

At races back home in Geneva, he had found a way to cope with such moments by tagging on to someone running at a similar or slightly faster pace. Here, among an international crowd, he had to rely on his English speaking skills to ask other runners for help and company. However, no one seemed to be running at his pace. The only person who showed interest was much too slow for him, and Arto eventually had to leave him behind.

Arto finally completed the Half Ironman in Cervia in 4 hours and 58 minutes, just eight minutes longer than the 4 hours and 50 minutes he had taken to complete an earlier half distance triathlon. For an 18 year old still in high school, taking on such a demanding endurance event in another country and managing the entire experience largely on his own was no small feat. Yet, his joy was tinged with loneliness. With no family there to cheer him on or celebrate his achievement, he had little time to savour the moment. He still had to collect his gear, retrieve his bike, dismantle it to fit into its protective cover and begin the long journey back to Geneva by train and bus. His body was crying out for food, but he had to wait until he could find the time to eat. He had a first meal about 6h after the race at 11 PM that night. Just enough to get through the night.

One small moment from that journey, however, has stayed with him. At 7 AM, he finally sat down to eat two pizzas, a meal he says he will never forget. After all the hours of physical exertion and the restrictions of race preparation, those pizzas must have tasted particularly good. Delighted to find vegetables on his pizza, he even told the pizza maker in Italian how happy he was to be eating them, having gone without vegetables during his race preparations. After pushing himself to such limits, this simple meal was perhaps one of the most satisfying rewards of his achievement.

running in the countryside of Geneva

Arto now dreams of joining a club and has his sights set on even bigger challenges. He hopes to run a marathon in an astonishing time and return to the Half Ironman next year and finish in a much faster time. As I listen to his ambitious plans, I chuckle and remind him not to forget the 10% rule and the importance of building up gradually to avoid injuries.

At just 18, Arto is already dreaming big and finding ways to turn those dreams into challenges he can work towards. I admire his enthusiasm, even as I remind him to be patient with his body. There is so much ahead of him, and I am glad I had the opportunity to share the story of this young man who is only just getting started.

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