A week after bushfire survivor Turia Pitt’s brave admission, the motivational speaker has announced she will race at the 2016 IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii later this year.
The race involves a 3.8km swim, 180km ride and 42.2km run.
“I’m totally pumped and completely terrified at the thought of going to the IRONMAN World Championships in Kailua- Kona Hawaii,” Pitt said in a statement.
Sharing the news with her 83,000 Instagram followers, Pitt wrote, “Beyond pumped (and absolutely terrified) to announce that I’ve been invited to race at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii this October!”
“It’s an absolute dream come true for me and I’m so humbled to be competing alongside some of the biggest Ironman legends on the planet.”
Pitt was caught in a fast moving bushfire in 2011 while she was competing in an Ultra Marathon in Western Australia.
Suffering burns to 65 per cent of her body, Pitt was determined to overcome the odds and and one day become an IRONMAN.
‘When I was in the hospital I was told that I’d never run again. It was like a light was switched on in my head. I thought “I’ll show you, I’m going to do an IRONMAN one day,”‘ she said.
‘It was the best motivation. My mum and my partner, Michael, would come into my hospital room each morning and say ‘come on, get up, it’s time to get training for your IRONMAN’ and I’d get up and get stuck in.’
