Fr. Brian Brigoli (Contributed Photo)
Will power and prayers got Fr. Brian Brigoli to the finish line in Sunday’s Cobra Ironman 70.3.
The seminary professor said he struggled with a strong sea current in Shangrila’s Mactan Resorts waters in the first stage of the race that could have eliminated him.
“I really thought I wouldn’t make it to the next round. I almost gave up. The current was just too much and I could barely move forward,” Brigoli told Cebu Daily News.
“I was really praying for a miracle to happen,” he said.
READ: Triathlon gives Fr. Brian ‘more energy’ as a priest | Priest overcomes rough start to finish Cobra Ironman
He got it when a marshal suddenly announced that the 70-minute cut off time was being extended, and that remaining swimmers were allowed to take a shortcut to the finish line.
It took an hour and 48 minutes for Brigoli to finish the swimming round.
The triathlon, his second Cobran Ironman 70.3 in Cebu, included a two-kilometer swim, followed by a 90-kilometer bike ride, and rounded out with a 21-kilometer run.
Brigoli performed better in the next two stages, finishing the bike ride in two hours and 50 minutes, and completing the run in two hours and 40 minutes–an improvement in his previous record of over three hours in the two rounds.
“I knew it was really beyond me to finish that round. We need to have faith in God and the will power to go through obstacles,” he said.
He finished the triathlon in the men’s 35 to 39 years old category in seven hours and 35 minutes. That was four minutes longer than his record in 2014.
“I realized that the race wasn’t only about physical endurance. One needs to have the will power and the determination.
Even if the body is incapable, if your mind is strong, you can do it,” the 36-year-old Cebuano priest added.
Brigoli said he hopes to improve his record in next year’s Ironman triathlon.
“Yes, I will still join next year’s race. But I have to really practice, especially in swimming against the current,” he said.
Brigoli, a conservation expert in church heritage, is a professor at the San Carlos Seminary College in Mabolo, Cebu City.