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Hacking an IM
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Inspired by Lars Finager's story on the front page..
http://www.slowtwitch.com/...an_Ironman_6242.html


What's your best result in terms of Input Time / Output Time, and how did you do it?



'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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Too complicated to explain, but I have tried that in the past (young and naive I was).
I have tried doing it on frequency and high intensity focus and it sucked during training and during the race...finished the last 30 miles of the bike at 10 mph and walked/crawled more than half of the marathon and ended up in Med Tent.
I finished, but was it maximizing my performance? Not even close.
Yeah, I probably did it wrong, I guess......hogwash!

Even if they vicariously deny it, you need to have a genetic gift to ace an IM on 12 hrs/week or less.

It is foolish to believe that you can just replicate the freaks of nature.

It is even irresponsible to suggest everybody should try it without having evidence that it may work (shorter events on marginal training etc.).
Last edited by: windschatten: Mar 10, 17 20:13
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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I didn't exactly hack an ironman,
But in training for Maastricht last year I

Swam 2-3x a week for 30 minutes at a time, I never swam for anything longer than 40 minutes in training and never continuous.
At the race I swam a 58 I think!

I bike to work and back (30 mins each way in traffic) otherwise doing 2-3 hours of turbo work in addition, no long rides, longest ride was 2.5 in aero 2 weeks before the race.
I biked around 5 hours, slowish course! Top pros were around 4.45 I think.

I ran only 2 hours a week, mostly short treadmill reps with the odd 1 hour trail run.
0 long runs in the build up.
In the race I ran 3.15 due to calf cramp from the swim, which caused my soleus to expand to over inch it's normal size. Not comfortable!

Overall 9.30 and around 20th off an average of max 10-12 hours a week.
So not spectacular but not bad considering 0 normal ironman training (I.e. Long stuff)
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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Malte Bruns, I think it was 2015 where he had the fastest time of the amateures in Kona. I saw an interview with him: the year before he trained especially a lot, up to 30h a week, all in the same moderate speed, avoiding any intensity.

It seems that there are many ways to archieve success, and it is probably so that everyone reacts different on a certain type of training. Life's too short to try out everything....
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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My best "hack" result was in 1997 when my son was 1 year old. I just commuted to work 8K biking each way, and ran at lunch and lifted weights for 50 min or so at lunch. On Wed morning I got up super early and did a hard 2.5 hour ride. Weekends, I just ran whenever I could. There was one other morning per week where I got to leave home early and stop at the pool for a hard 40 min swim. Weekends were one day 1 hour run and one day riding 2 hours on the mountain bike with my son in the bike trailer.

Then in a 9 day span when my wife and son were away at the Inlaws, I did 2 half IM's on 2 weekends and mid week I took a day off work and did a 180K ride and 21K run (stupid, but I did not want to fly all the way from Ottawa to Penticton without knowing I could put in a good run).

So basically 4x per week it was 20 min ride, 40 min run, 10 min weight
Wed 1x per week was 2.5 hour hard ride, 40 min lunch run
Fri add in the 40 min swim on top of the bike commute and lunch run
Sat 1 hr run
Sun 2 hr ride

Total = swim 40 min, bike 6 hrs, run ~4 hours, around 4x10 min of weights to keep some core and upper body conditioning for the swim (yes, I realize NOW that it was useless, but we did not have ST to tell me that lifting weights would not help my swim).

On the day of the IM, my swim kind of sucked and the back end of my bike sucked not due to lack of training, but bad pacing and nutrition, and the back end of my run sucked, probably not due to training but nutrition management middle of the run, but this was plenty of training to get it done. I ended up at 10:51 in Penticton. Honestly on that day with better execution I think I had a 10:15 in me. In that "9 day block" I went 4:3x at the Tupper Lake half IM and went 4:50 at the St. Agathe Half IM which was on par with Wildflower, so I underperformed at the full. There was plenty of fitness.

If I was to do it again, I would probably add in a second really hard swim and make both swims harder. I truly believe that part of underperforming at IM is drastically overswimming and not knowing it.

If I look at the front page article, Lars has the right idea swimming hard for 3 hours. If you are going to be on the 10 hour plan, you need to swim really hard and a bit more than 40 min per week.
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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Did an 8:52 Ironman last year with the 16 or so weeks leading in averaging 12-13 hours per week. 5 - 7000yds swim, bike all on the trainer, and average 35 miles running all on a treadmill per week.

I'd have to dig for the specifics, but that was about it.

My longest training ride in that year was 65 miles and did 2 long runs of 15 miles each.

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New Training/Racing Log - http://www.earthdaykid.com/blog --- Old Training/Racing Log - http://colinlaughery.blogspot.com
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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I'm looking forward to when "hack" is retired as a verb applied to all forms of activity.
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Re: Hacking an IM [Poon] [ In reply to ]
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i dont know if this can apply to an adult onset AG athlete.... lars and colin have big engines from their back ground. i have seen athletes in various sports do come backs with minimal training to hit their former numbers. muscle memory is a big thing. So if you are a 12 hour IM person, dont expect to take 5 years off and expect on low training program to do 8-9 hours
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Re: Hacking an IM [synthetic] [ In reply to ]
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Anyone remember that Trulia website.
It usually didn't work. And when it did it, it produced very weak results.

All in all, one would have been much better off - if one had chosen any one of other 10,0000 more reliable real estate search engine that were available.

But for some reason any mention of real estate brought up Trulia.

Don't get me wrong.
I would love to create a worthless website and make a half billion dollars from it.
I would also love to race a sub 9 IM without training very hard.

But if I could do this stuff....
Why not make a website that WORKS!
Or race a sub 8 IM?

Maybe it is not the destination that matters.
Maybe one should aspire to make something valuable.
Maybe a website that works - even if you don't profit from it.
Maybe race an IM well with the talent you have.
Last edited by: Velocibuddha: Mar 11, 17 11:13
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Re: Hacking an IM [Velocibuddha] [ In reply to ]
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Velocibuddha wrote:
Anyone remember that Trulia website.
It usually didn't work. And when it did it, it produced very weak results.

All in all, one would have been much better off - if one had chosen any one of other 10,0000 more reliable real estate search engine that were available.

But for some reason any mention of real estate brought up Trulia.

Don't get me wrong.
I would love to create a worthless website and make a half billion dollars from it.
I would also love to race a sub 9 IM without training very hard.

But if I could do this stuff....
Why not make a website that WORKS!
Or race a sub 8 IM?

Maybe it is not the destination that matters.
Maybe one should aspire to make something valuable.
Maybe a website that works - even if you don't profit from it.
Maybe race an IM well with the talent you have.

Nothing asshole-ish about that post at all. Nothing.

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One
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Re: Hacking an IM [georged] [ In reply to ]
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I have found the more I train the better I get. Not being snarky, but less volume and higher intensity produced worse results for me. I am a KQ bubble guy, qualified 3x, failed to qualify 3x.

For me high volume for 16 weeks before an IM is 14 hours, something like 4 week builds at 13, 17, 18, 10 hours. I also find that training 14 hours a week vs 10 or 11 hours makes about no difference to how impacts family/work. Making all runs straight off the bike is VERY time efficient and specific.

Anybody excelling on 10 hours is either very gifted or much more likely gifted and has a big background in endurance sports.
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Re: Hacking an IM [DBF] [ In reply to ]
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The article never seems to question if Sami was maximizing his potential. Sure he's fast, but for all we know he has the raw talent to go even faster.

You could put Jan Frodeno on a high intensity, low volume plan and he probably still easily goes sub 9 at Kona.

Is taht strategy a lot more time effective? No doubt. Low volume and low intesity won't work nearly as well. That's just common sense. High volume and high intensity, will get your broken. So ultimately optimizing recovery and diet and making the most of reduced volume is probably a close 2nd to a conventional high volume plan. But there's little margin for error I think. Get injured, don;t stay lean, mismanage race execution and you have little raw volume to fall back on as a buffer in a sense.


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http://www.trainingbible.com
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Re: Hacking an IM [motoguy128] [ In reply to ]
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You can get away with "hacking" your training hours a lot when you already have years of training under your belt.

I can now run a sub 16 minute 5k off of 15 miles per week, but I have a collegiate running background and high volume post-collegiate triathlon training which has permanently boosted my aerobic efficiency.

I ran 15 miles per week when I was 14-15 years old in high school, and despite being able to run the mile a lot faster than I can now, my 5k times were around 17:00-17:30.

my aerobic efficiency was much lower as a high school athlete. People just starting out in triathlon usually don't have a huge background of aerobic training under their belt, and consequently will not respond very well to a low volume high intensity training plan.

That being said, I do think that most amateur triathletes could use more high velocity stimuli in their training, especially in running. Just like in swimming, your neuromuscular efficiency in running is significantly stimulated at velocities at and above vo2max. Many triathletes don't ever run faster than their lactate threshold in training however.
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