Vegan Vlad’s crazy schedule of wins and records

Coming out of an intense stretch with twelve races in eight weeks, the focus has been on speed not distance.

15 March 2018

Hitting age 30 hasn’t slowed Vlad Ixel down, although it has made him think about his races.

Finishing 2017 with 12 race wins in the year, he’s taken six wins already this year. He won a 12k then a 25k, before taking on the MSIG Sai Kung 22k, where his win took the course record. He then won the Sun Life 5k ahead of the Translantau 25k.

The Translantau is a set of three races on coastal trails – the 25 km includes 1200 metres of height gain and has a 7 ½ hour cur off time. Vlad’s win gave him the course record. Vlad has won the other two distances (50km and 100km), and has two of the three course records as he also has if for the 50k.

Bike and water too

Last year Vlad adapted well to swimming and cycling – despite having barely trained on two wheels. He’s already made incredible progress.

“I did my first ever half Ironman 2 weeks ago and finished 5th in my category which got me a place in the half ironman championships in South Africa later on this year.”

Qualifying for the championships is an amazing achievement for an inexperienced triathlete, which is testament to the incredible fitness Vlad has built up. He also feels that the change has done him good.

“I think that mixing up my training and racing is a part of my overall big picture of my running career – I’ve been lucky to stay injury free for over five years and now dropping my weekly mileage from 160km average a week to 70-80k average a week has been a good break for my body.”

“I would like to do 2-3 half irons mans over the summer as I enjoy mixing up my training with cycling and swimming – I only started cycling and swimming 8 months ago so I really enjoy learning and improving in both sports right now.”

We know he’s going to give them 100% and can only imagine he’ll surprise a few people.

Vlad’s profile