Number one tip: get lucky in the lottery. Tim

train hard and smarter. lotto is just sad and cheapens the event.

if i was to qualify i would want to say... "i qualified for the ironman world championship in hawaii" that sounds effing kick ass.

"i qualified by a pussy lotto b/c i can just throw money at all my problems in life" sounds like a loser.

It takes the 5 T's, in order of importance:

Talent

Training

Time

Timing

Treasure (money)

And when you've finally done it, of course you'll need:

Therapy

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Coach at KonaCoach Multisport

I qualified my in my first year of IM racing, second year of triathlon competing, in 2007. In the spring of '06 I made an April '07 IMAZ my goal qualifying race, hired a coach and did everything he told me to do. I went from my first triathlon to Kona qualifying in 11 months. It cost a lot of money for gear and coaching and took a huge amount of time. Number one tip? Coaching.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
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Out living your competition. I'll let you know if it works in about 25 years.

If a lotto person is stealing your dream, then obviously you are not fast enough to qualify now. How does that make you any more "deserving"? What makes you think lottery people don't have as many years of work, sweat or sacrifice as you? Neither of you "qualify" now. Adding qualifying slots to slower people will cheapen the event as much as lotto. Everyone has dreams and everyone's dreams are equally important.

The only people who worry about Lotto slots are those that just aren't fast enough to qualify. Maybe you just need to work harder and you would qualify under the current system. Why should it be made slower for you? There are athletes that think "roll down" slots are cheap too.

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1. Genetics (choose your parents wisely)
2. Drugs (hell, they don't test age groupers)
3. Luck (I "stole" a spot & lotto'd in back in '02; remaining injury & sickness free)
4. Dedication (or OCB?)
5. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Or, simply enjoy the sport & realize that validating one's identity as a triathlete as nothing to do with going to Kona.

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#swimmingmatters
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
The Doctor (#12)

In order to qualify for Kona you need to be able to run about sub 3:30 off of the bike, and your bike needs to be around 3:20, and your swim about an hour. It all comes down to the run.

In order to do this you need to improve your COMBINED bike/run time to around 8:30 to 8:50

So, my number one tip is to RIDE THE BIKE. This needs to be a complete shift in your thinking. Ride 7 days a week. Ride 10 hours on weekdays and 10 more on the weekends. Bike before you bike, and then bike some more. You will cut 30 minutes off of your RUN split by doing this.

At a minimum to one focused long ride progressing up to 7 hours w/ extended time in Zone 2 (IM race pace) w/ Zone 3 and 4 inserts, then do one quality trainer workout a week w/ structured intervals, and one mid-week long ride for aerobic maintenance. Then, hop on your trainer for recovery spins every chance you get. Run easy off of the bike as often as possible, w/ one hard run off the bike a week.

Of course, training smart is key, so be sure to follow the principles of consistency, specificity, progressive overload, and recovery. Don't ramp up to quickly to a volume you can't handle week after repeatable week.

Let me add an extra plug for specificity. Rolling along in Zone 1 on all of your long rides and runs will not help. Get out there and push... Zone 2/3 as much as possible.

Go hard and get into the "sweet spot"

good luck!

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

consistency, consistency, consistency and get the most out of every workout - if you workout plan is to go hard - go hard, if it�s to go easy - go easy.

you don�t need to train for 30+hours a week. Train smart and efficient:-)

Good luck

Being able to run sub-3:30 and ride around 5:20 (assume that's what you mean) is no guarantee. Very much depends on the race. I've been under those times with an hour for the swim in 4 races and no qualification yet!

Otherwise agreed consistency of training is key. Just the goal varies according to the races you enter.

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Try channeling some of that anger into your training and you won't have to worry about "lotto thieves"...

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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maybe he should channel some anger and grab a dictionary....."jusy", maybe "their" should be a lottery........just sayin

I'm sorry I haven't heard that story....tell it again

Qualifying's not the hard part. Paying for it is, which is why I watched the race from my computer this past October. Now with 3 jobs and full year of training ahead. Hopefully everything will fall into place again.

To be honest, you have to train hard and race to win. But as you all know, in this sport luck is a big part. It's luck who shows up to race, who flats, and who passes on their slots. At Eagleman, the lone Kona slot in my AG slipped all the way down to 7th...not even under 5 hours AND a 19yo was in the mix. To me...that's luck. If I had a few extra G's lying around, I would have taken it long before the 7th guy.

I'm not complaining, just making my case for luck.

BWAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

:-)

My wife won the lotto this past year. Eat your heart out ya jerk.

Seriously, thats pretty damn impressive.

"Seriously, thats pretty damn impressive. "

How do you say "gifted". Not many people could do that. Also depends upon what his previous athletic experience was. If he was a TDF rider or olympic runner/swimmer beforehand qualifying as an AG'er it doesn't seem quite as amazing.

do you yanks even realise that you get 75% of the lottery spots for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!

quit your fucking complaining

There are only fifty international lottery spots. My wife was very fortunate to get one.

With all due respect intended, allowing the next person who just missed out before a lotto spot brings the standard of competition way up. We're often talking about people missing out by a minute, going well under 10 hours. Compare this to a lotto slot where (I don't know if they have minimum standards) they could waltz around for the experience. As pointed out, it's a WC event, there's no place for allowing people to buy their way in.

They could easily fill the event up with quality competitors without the need for lottos, armed forces etc (general comment to no one in particular - save your breath flaming me over armed forces, these guys are fit enough to qualify on their own merit, it's a WC, not a National Champs).

If for whatever reason they felt the couldn't fill the event then don't you think lotto etc spots would be more deserving if instead of letting anyone buy into the lotto, they take the next competitor (who just missed out) from every age group, from every IM race around the world, and put them into the lotto. Spots then get won by the 'next best'.

Honestly - if some of you people don't like it, then take it up with the organizers rather than whining on ST.

But on ST we get responses, good and bad. It makes us feel as though people are listening!

Besides, you're whining about others whining, hypocrite! :)