Our Story

10 Ordinary Women Signing up to an Ironman

10Ironwomen started in October 2018, when ten friends signed up to Ironman Barcelona. Some had never completed a triathlon before, and didn’t own a bike. Others had never swam in the sea and a few of us hadn’t run a marathon. But despite this, we wanted to send a message to other women that these events are achievable and we can do anything if we set our minds to it. Ironman events are not, as the name might suggest, just for men.

We set up an Instagram page to allow others to follow the 10 of us on our training journey. We wanted to be transparent, show others that as total novices in the sport we were willing to give this a go. By sharing every angle of our training journey the hope was that more women would feel encouraged to believe in themselves and see that an Ironman event is completely achievable.

We still can’t believe that at the time of our race, only 13% of the entrants were female. We had a good deal of insight through our Instagram followers as to why this might be… Women didn’t feel there was a space for them.

In 2019, a year after signing up and 30 weeks of training, we all (bar one) ran down the red carpet to the finish line of Ironman Barcelona. What a journey it was! Race day was like the 30 weeks of training all rolled into one. Highs, lows, tears, cheers. There was no way we would have signed up without each other. There is no way we would have completed the training without each other. And race day couldn’t have been more magical for being there as a team of Ironwomen. 

We realise not everyone has the option of signing up to an Ironman with their friends. 10Ironwomen exists mainly to provide a community for women to meet like-minded new friends and training buddies, people who will inspire them to believe that they can do any event they want to, no matter the distance.

“If we can do it, you can too.”