Based on an experience of half dozen marathons, a half dozen half-ironmans and a dozen ironmans...

From hardest to recover from to easiest:
- marathon
- ironman
- half-ironman

To give you an idea: running a marathon three weeks after an ironman is very doable. The opposite: not quite.

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First with the head, then with the heart. -- HG

I agree with the previous poster. Running a marathon at a decent pace is a lot harder than a half ironman, and probably harder than an ironman. I've not yet done an ironman full gas from the beginning though.

Rob

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Vanity Blog http://triathlonfoolishness.blogspot.com/

a marathon where you run as hard as you can maintain for the distance will hurt a lot more than an Ironman will in the days following. The speed of an ironman run is usually so much slower than an open mary pace that the pounding is not nearly as bad and the legs hurt more from general fatigue rather than being beat into submission.

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"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Elliot | Cycle2Tri.com
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I haven't done an IM, but have raced a few open marathons and a few HIMs. I always tell people that my marathons were MUCH, MUCH, MUCH harder than HIM. Even though my HIMs took more than an hour longer to complete than the marathon. Running for (in my case) 3.5+ hours was a huge beat down - mentally and physically. I could probably wake up on any day and race 70.3. Not a marathon.

a marathon is harder than an HIM for sure.
while it really does depend on how you push it..
if you broke down at your HIM and really killed yourself, it might be harder than an easy "just to finish" marathon

for me it doesnt matter, a marathon is harder.

that makes sense, but it seems counter intuitive to what you would normally think (i.e. ironman is much longer race so has to hurt more).

i haven't done a full ironman, but the marathon is probably tougher than the HIM. I find they are two separate beasts, but they both require pacing and good nutrition/hydration. Mentally the marathon is tougher b/c you spend so much time on your feet pounding the pavement. Good luck on your marathon training!

I'm curious as to what makes it 'harder' -- Like I said, I have never attempted a marathon (done a half and 15k at a fast pace 'for me') and felt those were pretty easyish...then the 1/2 iron was much harder....

I understand this is a subjective question - like is a 800 vs. a 5k "harder" -- but I see that the pros complete a marathon in about 2 hours - where as pros complete a half iron in 3:45, what specifically makes the marathon 'harder?"

Craig Alexander can do 70.3 races on back to back weekends at roughly the same speed--blazing fast. The recovery is only 2-3 days for them. He will even get some decent training in between races.

Ryan Hall can't run 2:10--or faster two weekends in a row, not without a huge probability of injury.

For this reason, racing a marathon seems to be harder in that its physical toll is much higher in terms of the time it takes to recover.

For me, a marathon is "harder" than a HIM for a couple of reasons. One is specificity - for 3-4 hours (presumably, longer for some, shorter for some), you are running a regular pace on a uniform surface. So, those specific muscles are getting worked harder than when you do three different activities for less time each. And, likely the pace is slightly more intense than in a HIM. For the record, I am more sore after a marathon than both a HIM and a full IM.

I've done 7 marathons, several HIMs and 1 IM. Trying to race a marathon is MUCH harder than a HIM. At least it is for me.

OK - which, in your opinion is a bigger accomplishment -- finishing a HIM or Marathon....I assume by this post most will say the marathon

x2.

While most agree that a marathon is tougher to race than a HIM. Would I be correct in saying that racing a HIM requires more effort in training terms than a marathon would?

"Effort"? I am not sure I would even say that. I would say that it *may* take more time, but that the 1/2 IM would actually be easier. Run lots and running hard is just plain harder work IMHO.

For me the marathon is harder than a HIM, but I feel more accomplishment finishing a HIM. I am not super fast, my best open mary is 3:15. I just think putting all the components of a HIM together gives me more of a feeling of accomplishment.

No. Just finishing a HIM is a greater accomplishment for average Joe.

Racing a marathon is hell for the legs. I puked my way on the run to a Top100 finish in Kona and ended up in the med tent. But I was OK.
However, I actually cried during the last mile of Boston due to the pain in my legs.

And I thought I was tough - what a joke! :)

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CAMPAGNOLO GRAN FONDO NEW YORK

You really need to run a hard effort road marathon to understand the nuance of your first line. You've run the distance of half of a marathon, but you've never been to the true half way point of a marathon. There's only one way to experience what happens when you've run 18-22 miles at 5:55-6:05/mi pace.

Specifically, physical trauma to your leg muscles make a marathon harder. It's not the initial trauma either, its pushing the pace through the trauma, after your body has been telling you to quite or at least slow down for 10k that really does the damage.

The marathon pros race maybe 2 marathons per year, and many drop out as soon as they realize they can't win or will be at the bottom of the prize money.

When I did my first HIM, I felt as tired (energy-wise) as when finishing a marathon but almost no soreness. I can't really consider my pace "racing" in a marathon, but I think the fact that you are using different muscles in different ways throughout a tri fatigues any one muscle less.

Is it really harder to recover from a marathon than a full IM? That seems counter intuitive.

In the Marathon vs Half Iron, I think Shaq would win :-) In my experience, a half iron is much easier. I have done plenty of half irons undertrained and have survived them fine, but the marathons I have done undertrained (all three) have totally trashed my legs :)

Its simply the beating your legs take that makes the difference. A hard 26 miles is brutal.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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I've done both in close succession. I would say overall hardness was about the same for me.

However I was better prepared for a marathon than a half iron, in that running was my major focus.

I think if one was preparing for a half iron the marathon would cause a lot more suffering.

I was doing about 30-40mpw running, about 40 miles a week of biking (at high intensity but still) and about 1 yard of swimming (serious)

I imagine had I been doing 100mpw of biking and 5k of swimming I would have been pretty comfortable during the half iron.

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Agree with most other post. Also depends on how fast and hard you are racing and how the race goes, but a marathon is much harder than a 1/2 IM and probably harder than a full IM. Recovery is faster for a 1/2 IM than a marathon for me and I am over 40. I think racing a marathon is harder than a Full IM, but marathon is a faster recovery.

If you start the bonk at the 20 mile point of a marathon, the race is a bitch and you will hurt. You must eat and drink or the last 6 miles will be very painful.

From a personal view, I can do a 1/2 IM with little fitness and still run the whole distance and just finished IMOO with a 4:30 run and not being near fit enough. I would not even start a marathon with out proper fitness. If something came up and I couldn't of done IMOO last week and had the chance of doing a marathon, I would have backed out on the marathon.

Get in your long runs.

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Lisa Walser-Anderson, ATC,CSCS

Counterintuitive? Granted.

But if you prepare well and you try to cross the finish line as fast as possible, there is no comparison. I run the im-marathon within 20 minutes of my marathon time so it might be different for those that race to T2 and shuffle on... ;-)

Ironman pros regularly string races together: Tissink was mentioned above, Vabrousek comes to mind as a "serial stringer". And the Hawaii-Florida double is very popular for European pros on their way back home.

Pro runners hardly ever string marathons with any kind of success. One could make a case for Rodgers, I suppose, but he is the exception to the rule.

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First with the head, then with the heart. -- HG

Depends which audience we are talking to; and whether we are referring to the training or to the race itself.

I have a lot of non-triathlete friends who run year-round and do a marathon here and there; all while trying to juggle the 9-to-5 job and possibly a family. They are probably running 4-6 hours per week during marathon training. Most of them consider that a big time commitment! Even if they are single with not-terribly-demanding jobs, they are not yet ready (or never will be) to give up other things in life, just to tack on yet more training hours.

I can't imagine saying to that group: Hey, why not try a half iron next year instead! It should only take you 10-14 hours of training per week! Hell, that's a lot easier than marathon training!

It's not just the training hours people don't want to deal with. It's also: Bike upkeep; equipment breakdowns; planning bike routes; driving to the pool; driving back from the pool; trying to (re)learn the bike skills; trying to (re)learn how to swim properly.

Running is simple.

Personally, I breathe a big sigh of relief the day after my fall half iron race, because I know that a rest and then a nice winter of marathon or 50k training is coming up. It's sure a lot simpler and faster to get the run-only training done. The legs can accumulate more background soreness, sure, during heavy run-only training. But the overall experience (for me) is that marathon/50k training is way easier than half iron training.