I did IMC last year on an average of 10 hrs/week OR less; and I really don't believe I was "slow." (10.51) Fleck has gone much faster on similar average training. So, although it probably depends on a lot of factors, yes it is feasible.

Most triathletes probably do way too much volume (it's our nature), although there is certainly a place for that, without a true game plan. Also, quality and specificity are very important.

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

In 1978 I did the first IM in under the current cut off time. My "training" consisted of:

1. one 1-mile swim in a pool two weeks before the race to convince myself I wouldn't drown.

2. two 10-mile rides on a bike 5 days a week commuting to work, having done that for about 6 months. (not a single ride over 10 miles)

3. about 40 miles per week running on top of that.

It is all about having reasonable (pretty good) endurance capabilities and then running a smart race within those capabilites, not having super capabilities.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

I was talking to a guy last weekend. He is 33 yrs old, had been a semi-competitve swimmer and played football when in his teens. He was out of shape and decided to take up running. Not wishing to start small he immediately decided to run a marathon despite having never run a race before. Believe it or not he finished. Slow time, and limped home the last 16 kms, but still finished.

w/ my longest run being one 15 miler at 2 hrs. My max week was 42 miles, 3 weeks out. I was very happy with coming in at 3:12.

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"Any idiot can run a marathon. It takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultramarathon." -Alan Cabelly

im cali.

longest swim(continuous): 1500 yards, and probably no session over 3000.

longest ride: one 50-52 miler

longest run: i might have had a 90 minute run once. average miles per week was probably 20 or less.

needless to say i wasn't overtrained. finished in 12:19 and change. that was race was my first of any kind. first time i had biked over 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 miles. first time i swam more than a mile. and my first marathon.

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f/k/a mclamb6

Thanks to all of you for your posts. From them (and other observations), I draw the following conclusion:

1. The suggested training times given in most triathlon books is much, much greater than actually necessary to finish.
2. If you're young enough and in any kind of fitness, you can just about finish any endurance event of reasonable length. E.g., I ran the St. George (Utah) Marathon last year with my two sons, ages 33 and 26 (as mentioned, I'm 58). They had average 12.5 miles per week training for the previous 12-16 weeks, and they finished fine. Slow, but fine.
3. Even at age 58, I should be able to finish the half ironman I have coming up one week from today in my goal of 6.5 hours.

BTW, this morning, I went down to the lake where the half IM is being held and swam a mile this morning. It was the first full, continuous, open-water mile swim I had ever done. I can't say how much of a confidence booster it was in preparation for the 1.2 mile swim next week. I'm ready.

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Do not take counsel of your fears.--Andrew Jackson

New Rules or Why I Consider Myself a Pioneer

New Rule No. 1:

Never (EVER) participate in a triathlon without knowing (or verifying) the distance of the Triathlon. Yea, I know what your thinking. What kind of moron would…well, let’s just say – that’s Mr. Moron to you!

I don’t know what it was, but sometimes you do so many triathlons in your life (and in one season) you forget to find out the obvious. I decided (pretty much on a whim) to do a triathlon I had done a few times. The last time I had done this tri was a couple of years ago. At that time, it was a sprint distance tri. Unfortunately, I was in for a surprise. When, you ask? Well let’s just say, it was waaay to late to change my mind. Or, maybe, I should say, I was treading water at the time.

Now, I seem to remember that an athlete shouldn’t increase the distance more than 10% per day. Well, I was about to increase my training volume by 100%. Yep, there I was. I was about to do an International Distance in what I thought was a Sprint distance triathlon. Someone pinch me…someone throw water in my face…well, no one pinched me but someone did kick me…and, yes someone did splashed water in my face – the swim was on and it wasn’t a bad dream – worse, it was for real.

Well in keeping with the spirit of he-man bravado…I did the most normal triathlete/lemming "knee jerk" reaction thing – I swam. I finished the swim in spite of horrible swells and a "mind bending" headache (…my goggles were on waaaay too tight). Only to meet with a very wet environment that led to creation of Rule No. 2.

New Rule No. 2:

Always check the weather BEFORE you decide to travel great distances to enter into a triathlon (that you should know the distance-see Rule No. One).

I transitioned through T1 only to begin the bike portion. Let’s see, …how can I describe the bike? The best way would be to say, "hydration was NOT a problem". In fact, this is the first triathlon in which the Aerobar’s Profile water bottle had more water in it at the end of the bike than when I started. O.K., that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Actually throughout the bike, I couldn’t see the water bottle because of the rain. Two reasons: 1) Some called it hard rain. I prefer to call it a wall of water with hints of Moses parting the sea sort of thing (Note to self: Tropical Storm = Rain (LOT’S of rain!)). 2) I had a death grip on the handlebars and seldom looked down.

Well, death grip and caution help me make it through the bike. Now, as for the run, all I can say is – legs don’t fail me now! And they didn’t. I finished and decided to make the above new Rules. I guess you could say, we all learn from our experiences. But those who wish to have a REAL experience…I suggest you sign up for a "blind date" triathlon. It’s an experience that is sought after by pioneer triathletes. You’ll recognize them by the arrows in their butt (hmmm…I was wondering what I’ve been sitting on).

Joe Moya

One year, many moons ago, I finished the NYC marathon in a bit under three hours. That qualified me for Boston. I did absolutely nothing more strenuous than watching TV from late October until the middle of March. One month before Boston, I started running again. It wasn't pretty.

I hung in during the race until Cleveland Circle, where I started to walk. It hurt, but I finished in 3:20 and change. I considered this result to be patheticl.

The years bring perspective. No amount of training would bring me a 3:20 now. Where are the good old days anyway?

Your running 3:19 on essentially no training (with some walking) reinforces my belief that my own body doesn't contain a single fast twitch fiber. Such a performance just boggles my mind.

Also years ago, my previous best marathon (after several tries) was about 3:20 and I took three months to train very hard to see if I could get to under 3 to qualify for Boston. I went to the Big Island Marathon, found a reliably sub 3 hour person to pace off of, was dropped at about mile 10 and ended up finishing at about 3:45.

I was devastated and had to do something for my ego. So I did my first real ultra, the Run to the Sun on Maui (37 miles from sea level to the top of Mt Haleakala - over 10,000 ft) in the fall of '77 followed by a 50 miler. It was this experience that convinced me I was capable of trying the first IM when I heard about it. Funny how life works out. Pretty good ego boost.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Frank,

When life gave you a lemon (no fast-twitch muscle fibers), you made lemonade (ironman triathlon)! Way to go.

In 1981, at age of 36, I did a 2:58. Wasn't enough to qualify me for Boston by the standards back then. I dropped out of marathoning for 20 years, gained tons of weight, got heart disease, and had to start over. I lost 65 pounds (starting in Feb 2000), and have run 3 marathons since. I tried to BQ, but got injured, and failed. I was depressed for a couple days about the injury, but realized I could bike and/or swim. So I decided to train for a triathlon. I will compete in my first half IM this coming Saturday. I did my first Olympic tri on May 17.

Such is life.

I'm determined to BQ at some point, but for now I'm focusing on triathlon and cycling.

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Do not take counsel of your fears.--Andrew Jackson

Thanks for the props, Dave.

IMC in 1997 will go down for me as a miracle race. I trained quite a bit less than normal for this one - even less than my 10 hour average. My son was born in the middle of July and time for training pre/post birth was at a premium. No runs longer than 2 hours and no rides longer than 4. I did do a couple of monstor bricks - 3 hour hard ride/2 hour hard run. Did not swim all winter and probably did only 10 - 15 total swim workouts going into the race.However, I did make EVERY workout count. Result was 9:30(1:00/5:20/3:10) 30th overall and 2nd in the 35 - 39 age-group. The bike hurt and I was off from my usual times on a day that was good for cycling, but I came back strong on the run and ran my way into a good place.

The untold real story is this race was really the result of an accumalation of over 20 years of top level running and triathlon training and having a bit of luck on race day.

Shortly after that race I decided that, that would be it for training/racing at that level for the forseeable future.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Not Triathlon, but similar...

Last year following a late season marathon I was bothered by nagging knee pain in my left knee. I decided that the best thing to do was just take a break from training and lift weights over the winter for a few months. Next thing I know its late february and all I've done is lift weights and go for about 10 runs - all winter. This isn't too bad, I'm thinking, there is still plenty of time to get ready for mid- to late season races. Then I get the call from an Adventure Racing buddy that his teammate broke his ankle and he needs a partner for the Gulf Coast Conquest, a 48 hour Adventure Race across Florida (220+ miles of mtbing, hiking, and canoeing). Having too much pride to say no, I agreed. I had three weeks to train. I really only did a few runs and some stair master with a 30lb pack a few times. We ended up enduring the swamps for 47 hours and crossed the finish line tired and glad it was over, only to be given a 1st place plaque and a check, for winning our division - 2 person teams, and getting 5th overall (losing to 4, 4 person teams). That is the longest race I have ever done, and I did it on the least amount of training I have ever done.

So next time your buddy tells you he can't go to the bar because he has to train early the next morning tell him to get a life!!

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-Erik

"I don't half-ass anything. For me its either whole-ass or nothing." -elake

It can be done on very little. In 2001 I did IMUSA with the following TOTAL milages from the previous september: Bike ~350mi, Run ~250mi, swim 7X. In 2002 I did IMUSA with the following TOTAL miles from the previous IMUSA: Bike ~310mi, Run ~260mi, swim 6X. I finished OK in both these races, but I was not a speed demon. I would not highly recommend doing this little preperation (my lack was due to several factors including new children (one each year for three years), new job, moving, and finishing my graduate work); but it it is all you can swing, it can work. Make sure you listen to your body, and what it is telling you so that you dont screw something up. Good luck!

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

Steven Judice was so undertrained in 2001 that he only beat me by three and a half hours at Lake Placid that year. I have a sneaking suspicion that Steve does something during the long Lake Placid winters to keep in shape.

I will be up in your neck of the woods in the middle of June, Steve. If you want to ride with me for a few hundred yards on the IM course until such time as you drop me like a blown inner tube, let me know.