After racing at the Swissman Xtreme Triathlon, Dragoș Georgescu already understood what the XTRI world was about. These races follow classic Ironman distances, but completely change the context: cold water, massive elevation gain, unpredictable weather, and constant reliance on a support team.
Swissman was just the beginning. The next step came in 2019, when Dragoș decided to continue his journey in the XTRI World Tour and line up for the Celtman Extreme Scottish Triathlon, in the northern Scottish Highlands. The race has a distinct reputation: extraordinary scenery, set in a harsh, natural environment where conditions can reshape the entire day.
Celtman Extreme Scottish Triathlon – key facts
Location: Shieldaig – Torridon – Glen Torridon – Ben Eighe, Highlands, Scotland
First edition: 2013
Circuit: XTRI World Tour
Distances: 3.8 km swim, 202 km bike, 42 km run
Elevation gain: approx. 4,000 m on the bike and over 2,000 m on the run
Point-to-point course: starting in Loch Shieldaig, crossing some of the wildest parts of the Highlands
Mandatory self-support: each athlete must be accompanied by their own support crew throughout the race
Limited field: around 250 slots, allocated by lottery
Mountain finish: the run ends with a technical mountain climb for those who make the cut-off
Extreme conditions: very cold water, strong winds, and rapidly changing weather typical of northern Scotland
Highlands: where the adventure begins
Getting to the start line is already part of the experience. Dragoș arrived in Scotland a few days early to acclimatize and explore the area. Celtman gathers athletes from all over the world, each with their own support team, and logistics quickly become part of the challenge. Villages are sparse, the course is remote, and the overall feeling is closer to an expedition than to a standard race.
His first impressions were striking.
“I’ll start with a wow! And I mean the places where this race takes place. The country is Scotland. The region: the Highlands. The northern part of the country, where most places are barely touched by human presence,” Dragoș writes on his blog.
Before the start, during the race briefing, organizers made the main challenge clear: the cold Atlantic water. The temperature was expected to be between 11 and 13°C, and another detail caught everyone’s attention: “cold and jellyfish-infested waters.” The tone was set. It was going to be a hard day.
Race preparation
Despite the conditions, Dragoș entered the race in excellent shape:
“I felt at the peak of my physical and mental preparation. Flabio Carmona and Seven Sport Club handled my training, race strategy, and planning, while Pavel Virgil Therapy took care of muscle therapy and recovery. I didn’t have a single cramp, which was amazing,” he told sportid.ro.
Celtman 2019 proved to be a brutally demanding race, where conditions made the difference until the very end.
“I’ve never done a harder triathlon,” he said for aimx.ro.
The full experience is captured in his race journal, written with honesty, tension, and a sense of humor that carries the story from start to finish.
The swim: the moment that changes everything
The race starts at 5 a.m., in darkness. Athletes enter the water as bagpipes echo from the shore, in a ritual that feels almost timeless. The atmosphere is solemn, but reality hits as soon as the swim begins.
“I tried a quick 50-meter warm-up, and it was terrifying. My face froze instantly. I had never experienced anything like it,” Dragoș recalls.
Cold water, waves, and darkness turn the opening leg into a survival test.
“My hands and arms froze. At one point I couldn’t bring my arm back anymore. My muscles had locked up and I was swimming with huge effort, pulling my arm with my whole body.”
Along the course, giant jellyfish appear — just as mentioned in the briefing.
“They were about a meter in diameter. We were told that if they were red or blue, we should stay away —they were dangerous.”
The impact didn’t end once he got out of the water.
“For six months after Celtman, I had nightmares. I would close my eyes and feel like I was sinking.”
Dragoș described the swim as the point where he came closest to quitting:
“I wanted to raise my hand three or four times. The swim was brutal.”
Not surprisingly, this is where most DNFs happen.
Why the support team matters
In XTRI races, the athlete is never alone. The support crew is part of the result.
For Dragoș, his wife Alina played a decisive role:
“The first key factor in such a race is having a rock-solid support team. And I definitely had that. Alina was everywhere. She waved at me from the car, handed me food, gave me time updates, and kept encouraging me.”
Their connection was essential:
“I’ve always said it — without her, I couldn’t do these races. The bond between athlete and supporter has to be complete. A big part of my energy comes from her.”
In the final part of the day, during the last kilometers of the run, Dragoș was joined by Alina and his friend Daniel, in a shared effort that carried him to the finish.
“The scenery was incredible. That’s the difference between XTRI and Ironman. The beauty of the course. In Ironman, you run loops like a hamster on a wheel. In XTRI, you run in the mountains, free, and most of the time alone. My kind of joy…”
The finish: beyond limits
The final kilometers brought a symbolic moment:
“I quickly reached the last 2 km… Then the rain stopped and a beautiful rainbow appeared. I was with Alina… on cloud nine.”
After more than 15 hours of effort, everything shifted in perspective:
“That long day was over. Nothing else mattered anymore — the experience felt like it came from another world. One that brought me and Alina even closer. Celtman turned out to be much harder than I expected, with a truly awful start and an exceptional finish, just as you’d expect from a 15-hour XTRI race,” he told sportid.ro.
Dragoș Georgescu is one of the few Romanians to have finished Celtman, placing 111th with a time of 15:02:41. Out of roughly 200 participants, only 166 made it to the finish line.
Next stop: ICON
The race in Scotland remained a defining experience. One that tests not just physical condition, but the ability to keep going when everything tells you to stop.
Celtman wasn’t the end. Later that same year, Dragoș continued the XTRI World Tour at ICON Livigno Xtreme Triathlon, in the Italian Alps.
The story continues in the next episode.
Photo: Dragoș Georgescu archive