He is Ironman

As the vice president of product marketing for a start-up called SnapApp, Lexington resident Edward Boudrot is depended on to deliver when it comes to hard work, discipline and rising to meet the next challenge.

It’s those same qualities that have pushed Boudrot to graduate from runner/cyclist who splashed around in the water to tri-athlete who recently completed his first Ironman.

On Sunday, Aug. 26, it took the 46-year-old Boudrot 14:35:02 to complete the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-run that was the Ironman in Louisville, Kent.

“It seems like folks who have hit a certain point in our lives are looking fro something more to do, looking for some new challenges,” said Boudrot, who also finished the Patriot Half in June. “My goal initially was to finish and not get hurt, but now the goal would be to do more Ironmans and try to crank my times down.”

Boudrot spoke with Lexington Patch recently about training, motivation and what it felt like to complete an Ironman.

What made you want to do the Ironman?

I wanted to challenge myself for something that lasted quite a duration that had a big goal at the end of it. In the beginning, you almost have this kind of turbulence with discipline, of, ‘Can you get through with doing this.’ It starts out with 10 to 15 weeks of training, and winds up with 20 to 25, and you cant miss multiple weeks of training or you won’t reach your goal.

Did you find it to be more of mental or physical challenge?

It’s definitely more mental than physical, even though you’re doing the physical activity, the mental side of it is the discipline to wake up at 5:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning, that’s mental. But also, during the ironman itself, you have to push yourself more mentally than physically. During the training, you dial yourself in for the endurance or power, so you know you have the physical capacity, but you don’t know if you have the mental capacity.

After all of the training, what was it like to be down there and participating?

It’s one big thing I have: To constantly learn. And I thought this would be an amazing experience to immerse myself in something I had never done before, to do it all in sequence and challenge myself to be that disciplined. I had prepared for about 30 weeks beforehand, so it was a long time commitment. One of the one-liners is that it’s like you’re at Disney world and you’re the ride.  It’s really well run. Ford does a great job as the sponsor and they really cater to the athletes. The volunteers keep you in good spirits and the amount of energy around the event is incredible, from the athletes around you and to finish that you pull from the crowd.

What was it like to cross the finish line?

You almost feel like you collapse in a way, because you come to an immediate stop. They actually have people there to actually catch you, to make sure you’re OK and if your not get you to the medical station.  I just thought, ‘That was hard.’ There was this great thing at the end of the Ironman, a seven-time finisher, who was about in his 30s, about three miles from the finish line, he saw me going hard and knew that he was going to push me to finish and said “Let’s go.” He said, “This is a great day for you. Enjoy it when you cross the finish line.” He ran me hard to the finish line, and