Perspiration and perseverance: Chantelle Gaugeler’s road to triathlon

Chantelle Gaugeler is Discovery’s ambassador to the Discovery World Triathlon Cape Town and her triathlon journey started when she was on holiday with friends who told her she wouldn’t be able to swim the Midmar Mile. Determined to prove them wrong, Chantelle went to her local gym and got into the pool. “When I first started swimming, I couldn’t swim more than one length,” she says. She persisted however; and slowly but surely she improved. While she was swimming, she observed a swim squad training and one day she decided to ask if she could join them.

When she joined the swim squad, she could barely keep up with the slowest swimmers in the slow lane. “I decided that my goal was to first be able to keep up with the swimmers in the slow lane, then to lead the slow lane, and eventually to get into the fast lane,” she recalls. It took her the better part of a year, but now, Chantelle is swimming in the fast lane; and keeping up! “Well,” she says, “it depends on who’s there, but most of the time I’m one of the faster swimmers.”

Her swim squad inspired her beyond just swimming better and faster; many of them talked frequently about triathlon and many of them regularly entered triathlons. “I think I was experiencing a bit of FOMO,” says Chantelle, referring to the acronym for ‘fear of missing out,’ “they were always talking about triathlon and were really excited about it.” She decided she would try her hand at running and at first she battled with it.

She entered a 4km run, but, she says her running was so bad. Much like with her swimming; however, she persisted and now she enjoys the running almost as much as she enjoys swimming. “My best discipline is definitely swimming,” she says, “and I love the running too. I think because I don’t enjoy the cycling as much, I don’t practise it as much as I should.”

The cycling was the last of the disciplines she picked up. She bought a second-hand bike that was too big for her and she couldn’t cleat in properly. “I think I was scared of falling,” she recalls about her first triathlon, an Olympic distance that she didn’t finish. “I’d finished the swim and was just pushing my bike out of the transition area when someone pointed out that I had a flat.” 

“I was so dejected because I’d never learned how to repair a flat but I sat there and fixed it. Then a few kilometres into the bike leg my tyre burst. I’d twisted the tube. So I walked the rest of the way and just cried. I thought that everyone would think I was such a loser because I’d worked so hard for this but couldn’t even finish”.

“But no-one cared,” she said, remembering her then-boyfriend telling her how proud he was of her, and her mother and brother cheering her on. “They all thought it was amazing that I’d just entered.”

More than anything, the support of Chantelle’s family and boyfriend encouraged her to persist despite not being able to finish her first triathlon. Her boyfriend at the time was an avid triathlete; so avid in fact, that Chantelle had been planning on breaking up with him because he was always training. She changed her mind and supported him through his half IronMan training, but couldn’t understand why he then wanted to enter the full IronMan. “I just couldn’t understand why you’d want to do that; he’d already finished the half, why do another one?”

But Chantelle went to Port Elizabeth to support him and experienced something of what it means to be a triathlete at that level. “I was standing by the barriers in this windy, cold, rainy weather and it was just the most exciting thing I’ve ever experienced,” she said. The bug had bitten.

She entered her first IronMan last year and as she had done for him, her boyfriend packed her lunches, made her dinner so it was ready for her when she got home from training, and generally supported her now intense training regime. In November, they got married.

“My life changed a lot when I started taking triathlon seriously.” She recalls how she used to go out clubbing late into the night but now her training takes preference. “I have to be in bed early to wake up at 3:15 in the morning to start training. I’ve done it once when I had a late night and still got up in the morning to train, but I felt so rotten.”

Chantelle recalls how her friends also changed; instead of the partying, late night group of friends she used to have, she now spends so much time with her training groups that they have become close friends.

She’s even influenced her brother, one of her most avid supporters, to try his hand at the sport and he has shown tremendous talent so far. “He did so well in his first triathlon, much better than me, but he was still so proud of me,” she says, fondly remembering her brother and mother cheering her on.

Although Chantelle’s own inner motivation had a great deal to do with her success thus far, she attributes her continuation with the sport, to a great extent, to her training squads as well. “They hold you accountable, and make it fun. You might wake up when it’s dark and dread having to get up; but then you remember you’re going to see your friends and that makes it so much better.”

Chantelle’s top tip for novice triathletes is therefore to get involved with a training group who can motivate and push you, but also encourage you to keep going and doing better.

Chantelle strongly recommends that you give this extraordinary sport a tri. Enter here.

And to find out more about Discovery, click here.