CLEMSON — To get an idea of how serious triathlon training is, just take a note from Saturday’s overall winners at the 11th Annual Clemson Triathlon race held at the Clemson Area YMCA.

“I did this one as kind of a warm up,” Kevin Lisska, the overall winner, who defended his 2007 title with a time of 0:56.34, said.

A warm up?

That’s right, swimming 750 meters, biking 11 miles and running 3.1 miles in just under an hour is just a warm up for the Fletcher, N.C. native.

“I’m actually training for a race next weekend called the California 70.3 Ironman race,” Lisska said. “I just did this one as sort of a warm up. I did this whole (USA Triathlon) series last year.”

It was just a warm up for the overall female winner too. Sione Jongstra, who is from Leerdam, Netherlands, is headed to Orlando, Fla., next weekend to compete in the Disney 70.3 triathlon.

“It’s always nice to win,” Jongstra said after recoding a time of 1:03.43. “I did not come out especially for this race. I have done two races before in the U.S., but I’m staying with my good friend Katie Malone the next four weeks and next weekend we are going down to Orlando for that race.

“She was doing this race and its fun. We camped out here last night and it’s good training.”

Serious training for a triathlon takes some serious dedication from an athlete. Lisska says he trains anywhere from 20 to 30 hours a week, usually doing all three phases at the same time. Most triathlon participants will usually break their training up, usually doing just two of the three events on the same day.

“In the winter I was putting in about 30 hours a week, riding about 300 (miles), running about 80 and swimming about 10,000 (meters),” Lisska said after besting his winning time from last year by more than a minute. “I picked up the intensity, I pretty much will bike and run at least three times a week, mixed in with some weight training, yoga and some other cross-training stuff.”

Jongstra is a semipro who tries to compete at the highest level. The former soccer player said she kind of just stumbled upon triathlons and once she started it, she realized it was something she would like to do more of.

“I enjoy it. I started doing it more and more,” she said. “I’m kind of semipro. I work one day out of the week and the rest of the time I train.”

Jongstra said Saturday’s bike course was somewhat of a challenge, though she still beat her nearest competitor, Jenny McDonagh of Mt. Pleasant, by 49 seconds.

“The bike course, probably for a lot of people is quiet tough, especially for beginners. You just have to be going all the time,” she said. “I think it helps if you are a good biker on this course. I just love the course though. It is pretty and it’s a nice course.”

Jongstra used the course to motivate her to the finish line. She wasn’t aware she was in first place until she made the turn back to the YMCA during the bike portion of the race.

“On the bike, you really don’t know what position you are in,” she said. “You just keep pushing. At the turning point you look at your watch and you try to see where the second girl is, but I still didn’t really slow down… This was good competition and really good training, but I still have to do a little bit more training now, but it was real good competition.”

Though Lisska beat out Sonni Dyer of Valdese, N.C. by nearly two minutes, he said the course challenged him to beat his own time.

“I actually think this course is a little bit harder than it was last year,” he said. “They changed the run course back to the old one so I was definitely pushing to try and break that time I had last year.

“That’s a good gage as to where I’m at because I have (run) that the last two years. It’s good to see constant improvement. It shows that I’m doing the right stuff and going in the right direction.”