In this episode we hear from Helly Rodriguez who is a husband, father, full-time employee and competing in the Ironman 70.0 World Championship this weekend in St. George, UT.
Helly shares how he went from someone that was overweight and grumpy to competing at the highest level.
Helly and his wife live in Florida and have 3 active children ages 7, 8 and 9. Helly describes himself as being in “terrible” condition in 2017 and knew he needed to make a change to being inspired after seeing Craig Alexander on TV. Even though his co-workers laughed at the idea, Helly was determined that Triathlon was something that he could conquer. Equipped with a $300 bike that he bought used and the support of his family and the triathlon community he developed his plan.
Fueled by the energy and excitement of completing his 1st Sprint Triathlon, Helly quickly signed up for his 2nd race. Helly immediately started working on a new plan and focused his attention to proper technique that would save overall time.
Describing himself as the “king of mistakes” but ultra-competitive, Helly found himself leading a race that he thought might have already been finished by everyone else. After becoming the overall winner within a year of staring, Helly signed up for his 2nd Olympic distance race and continued to keep detailed notes on his training; completely focused on improvement.
He is so organized that he already has his 2022 schedule set and is registered for all his races. He is already looking forward to knowing how he needs to prepare race by race depending on the course and condition so that his nutrition and equipment are ready. The goal is to consistently to put himself in a position to perform his best.
He approaches his race training by focusing on endurance first and then his speed. He researches how the “elite” athletes finished in previous years to establish his goal for race day.
Helly believes that proper nutrition is the foundation that everything should be built upon. With the help and support of his wife he switch his diet to become Vegan. He closely monitors and measures to the gram his protein, carbohydrate, vitamin, and water intake every day.
Helly is excited about racing elbow to elbow with the best in the world at this year’s Ironman 70.3 World Championship in St. George, UT on September 18, 2021. He knows it will be a beautiful and challenging course and he has already completed his research to prepare him for the day. Helly shares his goal of becoming the overall winner of an Ironman race while still an Age Group athlete.
Helly reveals the secret to obtaining sponsorship: race fast and make the podium! Helly details how he changes his bike setup every race to match the course. Helly is currently racing a Ventum Z Model with Profile Design handlebars and Shimano components. In his current setup he can maintain 290 watts on the bike.
Helly uses the Gatorade Gx Sweat Patch to measure his average sweat rate so that he can precisely plan for his fluid intake including electrolyte, salt and nutritarians. To prepare for the heat of Utah in September, Helly is taking advance of the Florida humidity and is doing most of his training in the middle of the day.
Helly breaks down his weekly training volume by discipline and whilst balancing work and family obligations, making sure to never sacrifice quality time with family. Being data focused, he stresses the importance of quality workouts over quantity always making sure to measure and analyze your key metrics.
We wish Helly the best at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship this year and in his quest to qualify for Kona next year.
Helly’s current sponsors include @OnnorSport, @thisisMOVVA_USA, @BaleafSport, @CompressionZ, @drinkhydrant, @ventumracing, and @drinkMagnak
Follow Helly Rodriguez on Instagram @hellyt