Have used this point system for years but had never heard of the Big Kahuna club. My best years are well below 20K.

Converted marathon training plan to the point system to reduce mileage on legs (and potential injury). Boston & NYC qualifying on the line. Race report next week.

yep the points system is dead on in terms of effort/exhaustion

Retired. Condo living. All my cycling indoors. Fitness center with 25m lap pool across the street. I’ve never done any Kahuna thing, or counted points, but average 20-25 hours/week. I’m old and slow, with a lot of low intensity, but run @60 mpw, Bike @200mpw, Swim @6km/week, and spend at least 3 hours/week lifting and or rowing. I don’t race tris anymore, because there aren’t any around here anymore, but still maintain some swimming and cycling. My racing focus is all running these days.

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Athlinks / Strava

My training volume before Ironman Maryland had a lot more volume than it has since. Been dealing with several injuries in the last 6 weeks (pain in my “good knee”), plus focused more on some work stuff. I’ve dropped to 4th in the standings. If I average 17 points a day, I’ll still break 20,000 points for 2023. I should calculate my October 2022-September 2023 score, it’s definitely more impressive than my January-December 2023 total.

This year is my first Big Kahuna. I'm a little off the pace right now, but I think I can get back into it and make 20,000 for the year. I work for our family business, which means I can get an hour workout in just about every day. I have a bike on a trainer in our extra office for when it's raining or my run legs just need a break. I'm trying to convince my brother-in-law to spend company money and dedicate part of our shop area to an Endless Pool, but he doesn't seem too into the idea for some reason. I shoot to get 60 points a day during the week and 70-80 on Saturday and Sunday.

17,680 points checking in! Doing the calcs, I've been a little under until last year when I did more swimming/running and less cycling. I'm helped a lot by the 4x multiplier on running miles since I run more than most triathletes (and I did more road/less trail this year). For the whole year I'm probably averaging 15-16 hours/week, but in most heavy periods ramping up for races I do ~20 hours. I then try to be cognizant and take multiple days off and at least 1 week light after to reset.

I think I should get there but it'll be tight- I'm taking a few light weeks now after wrapping up my racing in NYC on Sunday. But starting around Thanksgiving, I want to do a big base block in 2024. I always run more around Christmas since I'm traveling for the holidays so the 4x multiplier helps out a lot. would've been right on track but I lost 2 weeks when I was going to do a big volume block from getting Covid around the 4th. But I'm going to remember this as a little goal along with getting to 10,000 cycling and 2,000 running miles for the year.

interesting tidbit... USAT used to have something similar as the "National Club Challenge" off season. It ran about the same time a ST 100/100, first month swim points focuse, second bike, third run. I actually ended up winning a power meter and garmin watch during the challenge

Is this an actual challenge thing or a word of mouth kind of thing? I've never heard of it. This is year 3 of triathlon for me. Did some quick math & I was at 18.5k in 2021 & 21.1k in 2022. Sitting at ~17k this year & should clear 20 again.

In 2021 I didn't do much swimming/biking in the front part of the year, training for a spring marathon. Did my first 70.3 that July & some good training before then. But after that I did the fall version of the Boston Marathon. 2022 was my first real swim/bike/run year. My average week was roughly 11k swim/155 bike/35 run. It seems like the path to 20k is pretty straightforward. Stay healthy. Be consistent. Train around 15ish hours, +/- at different parts of the year. Getting to 2000 miles (or close) of running seems key. Something like 8k (or more) of biking & 2k of running puts you in the ballpark, without having to go to the pool too much (maybe 2-4 times/week, 7k-8k/week with those bike/run numbers).


I'm lucky enough to work from home ~90% of the time. I work for a union & do contract negotiation. Our sessions are mostly on zoom. Occasionally I have to drive to worksites but a lot of those meetings can be done from home too. We have larger events that typically pull me away for 1-2 total weeks/year in smaller portions that disrupt training a bit. You make it work.

I don’t know anything about the kahuna contest or even where to find it, but using the points in the first post, and my Garmin data, I would have 21,732 points as of today. Is that any good?

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Athlinks / Strava

You can find it here:

https://training.eric-jensen.org/...enges/leaderboard/29

But, I think you have to register for the site before you can see the board.

In short, the leader (stillmoviing) has 20,582 pts.

Interesting. It shows the top 5 places if you click on the challenge. I’m just an old guy who likes to be fit. I had had no idea my volume was any match for you guys.

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Athlinks / Strava

This is a weird thing right?

1 point is roughly equal to 2 min, so >12h week on average. If you're training that much aren't your goals (probably) a little higher than simply accumulating volume? It's hard to imagine someone training a few hours everyday for a year just to get an internet award.

Furthermore, the linear relationship of points for pace incentivizes zone3/grey zone training that is generally not the ideal zone for high volume training. And it punishes cycling in the hills which is an absolute standby.

Gaming it out you should really wear supershoes, train exclusively on the flats in aerobars, wear floaty shorts/fins/paddles to make every training session as artificially fast as possible.

Idk, the whole thing just seems like a great way to get yourself very fatigued with very little to show for it.

I work a regular type job (40-50 hours/week) at a college that provides free membership to a great athletic facility (pool, gym, indoor track, treadmills, sauna, etc.) Work schedule is afternoons into evenings 4 days/week (sometimes as late as 2am) so i get all my training done before I clock in and get 3 days off for my weekends which is a huge perk. Sadly, I will fall short of 20,000 points for a second year in a row but it's still a lot of volume and consistency over several years. It's truly amazing to see people hitting the full 20,000 points.

It was a great challenge during 2020 when life and racing was non-existent. Not so much anymore.

seems you have other factors limiting your volume. I think actually racing a lot where you have to travel far will definitely hinder ability to hit volume

Using that system- I am currently at 18,411.

I will probably make 20,000 by the end of the year

I was hoping for a top 5 finish in Nice in the 50-55
AG and did a lot of training.
I failed miserably!! (Again).

I am mostly self-coached.

I feel that lower volume, with more quality would have been beneficial.

Especially....
Running is my weakness.
But it's not nearly as bad as it might seem!!
What is bad, is my running after 5 hrs of cycling.
Even worse- running in the heat after 5 hours cycling.

It would have been far wiser to focus on this.
Race nutrition, heat tolerance, running efficiency..

More quality.
More thoughtfulness.
Less long easy, cycling and swimming.
Although, bike commuting too work should stay!

then jump in on the challenge... we would like to see how many reach the title

Until this thread, I didn’t even know what this was about, and have no interest in the contest or internet awards. And as for fatigue, I’ve been doing this stuff for over 40 years, and structured training with a bunch of hiit, speedwork, threshold type stuff got me overtrained, injured and fatigued a hell of a lot worse than just shlogging out a ton of volume by feel. I’m in the best shape of my life, feel better than ever, and it’s been years since I was injured enough to take time off. I was shocked when I made the 60-64 podium (5th) in Tulsa in 2022, as I wasn’t trying for anything like that. Digging a little deeper, I’m an addict and alcoholic who traded my negative addictions for athletics, many years ago. So what I have to show for it, is that it keeps me alive and somewhat sane. I also have a genetic history of osteo and psoriatic arthritis, autoimmune disorders, with both parents long gone, and unhealthy siblings on all sorts of meds. The more I move, that less that shit takes a hold. The less I move, the more that stuff tries rearing it’s ugly head. I’m med free, and attempting to stay that way.

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Athlinks / Strava

Obviously everyone is different when it comes to training volume.

My wife and I are both in the top ten of The Big Kahuna and have been for years now.

We just love to swim, bike and run. That being said, we both have qualified for World Championships,
and I finished 3rd in Nice (60-64). We both believe in high volume and consistency.
I've been racing for over 20 years now and still love the training.

I collected my bronze medal when I got out of the pool today!

I’m a college professor. I am single and child free, and I basically set my own work hours. That facilitates my mitochondria farming w long easy volume.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I’m a big fan of my medals! I have collected one every year since we started the challenge. I am also a big fan of my imaginary flat coke I was given as a prize. People here perfected that recipe.

(The challenge motivates me to put in bike miles
- I am terrible cyclist and it is my least favorite of the three). But I really like this challenge. We have the 100/100 to which people like. Are you new here? Plenty of people like their ST awards… I ask that nicely. Really.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

currently 5 in the Big K club, 4 very close to joining! wonder how weare all doing compared to other years

Poster's profile says far FAR from it; though not very prolific, at all

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Wow, I found this really interesting! Strava's year in review has me in their top 1% most active users. I googled their user base and it is over 95 million. I'm on track to break 18K on the challenge. I know very few ST'ers make BK status but that's a lot smaller sample size than Strava. I would have thought out of 95 million people there would be a lot more that do big volume. Does that Strava report sound right?