Completing a triathlon in itself is an impressive feat. To be able to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles consecutively is something that takes a lot of endurance and training. Now think about doing a triathlon in the Swiss Alps, That’s exactly what 2010 New Trier graduate Matt Krause did June 24 when he competed and finished the SWISSMAN Xtreme Triathlon on the Brissago-Islands in 19 hours, 29 minutes.

“I did the Ironman Triathlon in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho last year and the reason I did that one was b/c after college I was able to save up enough money to be able to do one,” Krause said. “My coaches never let me b/c fear of injury in both high school and college. I ended up doing that and googled what’s harder than an Ironman triathlon and the ones that are sponsored by the Ironman Association and I found the Swissman.”

The Swissman is part of a three-part series: the Swissman and that’s in Switzerland; the CELTMAN! Scottish extreme Triathlon, which is in Scotland and the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon, which is in Norway. To be able to participate in all three, a competitor needs to enter a lottery and in the case of the Swissman, only 250 people are chosen to take part. They randomly select people who apply and they say that it’s a percentage system so they take half Swiss for the race and Krause was one of 11 Americans, with some others from China, South Africa, Portugal.

“It was by far one of the most brutal things I’ve done mentally and physically in my life,” he said.

A different aspect in the Swissman is that the competitors are allowed to bring teams with them to help them at various points of the race. Krause’s team included his girlfriend, Lauren, her sister Lexie and their friend Lily.

“You’re required to have your phone on you at all time, so you can have constant communication with your team in order to be able to communicate where each other are,” Krause said. “Forty miles into the race, at Biasca, when the altitude hasn’t even hit yet, I was like “I don’t know if I’m too much of a mountain guy and they told me “Matt, it hasn’t even started yet.” I was like “please don’t tell me that.””

Krause’s trainings were between 15-20 hours a week for about seven months and during those 15-20 hour weeks, every event was equally distributed hour-wise. Saturdays were always the longest days, anywhere between 4-5 hours of bike training, strength training, endurance training but most was strength training to prepare for the hills. The swimming was not the easiest to train for, he said, because he goes to this Fitness Formula Club in Lakeview and it’s only 17 feet long and the laps can add up a lot so you have to stick to it and know that staring at that blue line in the pool is going to bring you to a pretty solid finish to the day.

“The training got extremely boring at time but I have an amazing support crew to push me through those days where I wanted to party instead but reminded me that training was most important,” he added.

Along with being only one of 11 Americans, at 25, he was the second-youngest to participate in the event, as well as the second-youngest finisher.  

“I think that maybe more would do it my age if they had the money for it,” he added. “I think since i have such a passion for it, it’s something to do during the day, all throughout the year and just finally having that goal. It doesn’t give me an excuse not to really do it.”

Participating in an event in the Alps created many challenges for Krause, especially temperature-wise. The temperature was between 80-90 degrees during the first 10-12 hours – the race started at 5 a.m. – but once the competitors got on the mountain and were touching the clouds, temperatures dropped to between 30-40 degrees. The drastic change meant he would have to meet with his team so he could get new gear to survive the new elements.

“A lot of it has to do with your nutrition b/c when you’re in the hot weather you wanna have as many fluids as you can and there are only so many stops your supporters are allowed to stop at,” he said. “So, when you’re in the very hot weather, you need as many liquids as possible when you meet up with the, even if your water bottles are half full, you want to have them already filled up, like a water bottle full of water or Gatorade.

“I had them have four water bottles, two had Gatorade, two had water and then I would have one water, one Gatorade. Say if I wanted two Gatorades, they could throw one to me and I could get up and go When it came to being in the hot sun, sweating profusely, I would run out but wouldn’t see them for another 15 minutes, I’d get extremely nutritionally drained. You didn’t have a choice, that was the extreme part about it. You had to sometimes suffer, not have any thing to eat and drink and can;t stop b/c that prevents you from making the cutoff times.”

After completing the Swissman, and proposing to his girlfriend a day or two later, Krause doesn’t know if he would be interested in doing it again.

“I think as of right now, I will not apply again,” he said. “If I want to beat myself up in a race, I’d prefer to do it somewhere else and get a new experience. Maybe the CELTMAN! or the Norseman.”

At the rate he’s been going, if Krause can conquer the alps, who knows what’s next?