Sebastjan Gergoric

cyclist  runner 

Sebastjan is a Slovenian triathlete who has raced sprint, Olympic and Ironman distance events. He is best known for his performances at Ironman level.

His accomplishments include four full Ironman events, of which all four were completed in under ten hours. His personal best is an astonishing 9:02:31 for the Barcelona Ironman. He represents the Slovenian amateur triathlon team. At the European Ironman championships in Frankfurt 2015, Sebastjan qualified for the World Ironman Championships 2015 in Kona Hawaii. Unfortunately he was unable to attend due to cost.

  • 9:02:31 personal best for Ironman
  • World Championship qualifier for Half Ironman
  • Successful in running and mountain biking

In 2017 he qualified for the World Half Ironman Championships again, and again had to decline due to cost (read more here).

Sebastjan has completed seven half-ironman triathlons also competes in trail races and mountain bike races. He has a sub-three hour marathon and sub 1:20 minute half marathon to his name.

Finding vegan

In 2005 Sebastjan stopped eating meat, and by 2013 he was vegan.

“I was suffering from a lot of headaches, and this was caused too much canned fish and heavy metals. A lot of fish contain lead, silver, aluminium and cadmium” he told us in 2016. “I was also influenced by the ‘Ultraman’ book by Rich Roll.

“Now I eat completely vegan. I never eat animal products, and that includes when I’m traveling or in hotels. When I’m traveling, my girlfriend always looks for an apartment, so I can cook for myself.”

“I also wear vegan running shoes (Newton).”

Now Sebastjan eats a lot of pseudo grains (eg quinoa, buckwheat) along with “legumes, mushrooms, green vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, beetroot, avocado, hemp and olive oil, coconut/ hazelnut milk, rice mozzarella, lentils, cacao, chia seed and coconut.”

Ironman is known to be an extremely demanding sport, consisting of a 3.86km (2.4 mile) swim, 180.25 km (112 mile) cycle, followed by a marathon run – 42.2 km (26.2 miles). Training to complete this sort of event is extensive, while athletes like Sebastjan take that one step further with a commitment to completing the mammoth event quickly.

“My training is based on swimming, cycling and running. In addition to that also weight training and some CrossFit exercises.  In the off-season I do snowboarding and cross-country skiing.”

Unfortunately veganism in Slovenia has not gained acceptance in Sebastjan’s experience, and he encounters a lot of negativity. “They just ask the same question as other people: ‘Is this possible without meat’, ‘you would be better with meat and other animal products’ and so on…”

He remains committed and still wants to compete at the highest level. ”I’m hoping to qualify again for World Championships in Hawaii and have enough money to attend there.”

No Meat Athlete is a great running resource Full disclosure: 50% of any book you buy on there goes to support this website but there’s also a ton of free resources there.

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