Back in the day, I trained with Chris Hinshaw.

He would smoke me every day.

If I was doing a swim set of 10 x 100m, coming in at 1:18 and leaving at 1:45, he would be coming in at 1:00 and leaving at 1:15.

We rode our bikes from San Luis Obispo down to Santa Barbara. I would be going all out with a heart rate of 188 and he would grab my saddle and push me up the hills.

Just keep in mind that not everyone that discovers triathlon is genetically gifted enough to break 60 min in a sprint tri or 9 hours in an IM. However, almost anyone can make some good gains.

Focus on your own goals and try to have some fun. If you find out you simply don't have a body that's efficient at using oxygen you can always decide if you are ok just doing it for fun or can move on to another hobby.

One of the reasons I would never play golf beyond a few times here and there is because I have no talent whatsoever for it. Having some type A cells in me, so I prefer hobbies where I can be a bit better at.

Dont' use n=1 posts on ST to judge yourself.

If that were true, everyone healthy young male should be able to:

- Run sub5 for the mile
- 300 watt FTP.
- Run a sub3 marathon on 15mpw
- Swim close to 1:00 for a 100 after only 1 year of training

Yeah, all of those have been claimed by various individual posters at some point on ST. In particular, it seems that NOBODY on ST has an FTP south of 300w as I can't even remember the last time someone admitted to having a good yet normalish FTP like 220w.

A far better metric to gauge your individual year to year performance is your USAT score for your prior races.

https://rankings.usatriathlon.org/...esult/AthleteResults

It uses relative performance of all the racers to give a normalized score result. Different from just using time, for which a fast course will make you seem 'better' compared to a hard course, even for same fitness.

Getting a 90+ USAT score typically means you're in the top 10% or so of athletes nationwide, which is excellent. If you're in the 80s, you have a legit shot at podiuming local events. And even in the 70s, you'll be in the FOMOP.

I draw a lot of motivation from just working out and not getting lazy and fat. Look outside the Tri world and being able to swim bike and run for an olympic or HIM Tri and you are in better shape than 98% of your peers.
The peeing contest of who trains the most hours, who swims, bikes, runs the fastest is behind me.

Good luck
Uli

lots of good responses here. i would echo most everyone's comments that you cannot compare yourself to some of the guys on these threads. you are talking about some of the top athletes out there and many have been doing endurance sports most of their adults lives to get to that point. don't compare yourself to the top 1% but rather to yourself. that's what it's about. keep getting better and enjoy yourself at the same time. it does take time and it's not linear. you will see plateaus and also some jumps.

i started about 8 years ago when i was 43. was never an endurance athlete in my former life. played team sports but no swimming or track. had never run more than 2 miles at a time. began with some sprint tris and eventually into olympic, 70.3s and IM. have done more than a dozen 70.3s and 7 IMs. managed to keep a pretty balanced life, avoid injuries and have a heck of a time doing it. have also done some bike racing events, running races, OWS races and other assorted endurance events. it took a while of consistent training. probably 8-10 hours during offseason, 12-14 during 70.3 builds and then anywhere between 15-18 or so for IM. but always listening to my body and taking rest and time off when needed. also, lost 20 lbs in the process. although have put back on 5 since march. tough to work from home with food available all the time :)

i'm not fast by any means but have steadily gotten better. for 10k that first year i was at 50'. knocked that down and just missed breaking 40 last year with a 40:04 (course was long :), and a bit hilly). also big goal was a sub 19' 5k and i also did that last year at the age of 50, 18:50. again, there are 12 year old kids who can do that but without the running background, i'll take these results. have broken 5 hours in a half and working on 10 for a full. if we ever get racing again. have managed a couple of sub 10:20s at IMAZ (flat course). not posting these to brag because there are tons of guys here faster but i am usually pretty close to the front of the race. so you shouldn't get discouraged. this is a hobby and it can bring you tons of joy.

I really appreciate everyone's input here and it has truly allowed me to step back and realize I shouldn't care too much about what other peoples #'s are. I need to keep focusing on the task at hand and just concentrate on growing for myself. I really do love this sport and the community!

THANKS EVERYONE!

If you are going to compare yourself to anybody, compare yourself to you 6 months ago. That is a valid comparison and should be a source of great pride, and confirmation that you are doing worthwile and positive things.

when i did my first triathlon you were juuuuuust about ready to pop out of the womb. so, i've been at this awhile ;-)

there are 2 things that keep me going. first, every year i get better, as a function of my age group. you have that to look forward to. this is a lifetime activity. if you keep getting better - which you will - and then you finally hit an age wall and you'll just try not to regress, you'll find that you place progressively higher if you just keep going, just keep going. be smart, eat right. sleep well. just keep going. that 200 watt FTP will start to look pretty good once you get to my AG.

second, look over at this thread. what you are building are skills, to help you explore the earth. to help you go places under human powered locomotion that others will never have the capacity to experience. yes, there are races i'd normally be doing this year, that i can't do. but among the most fulfilling athletic events of my lifetime - those days i remember most fondly - are the roll-your-own events that you do with a buddy or two. so, take those skills out for a spin. you have them. use them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

As others have said, reporting bias will skew things, and what you don't see is that for every person that you see as being faster/stronger than you (supposedly) on the forums, they also in turn have a ton of people faster/stronger than them that they are chasing. It's a never ending game, and as the saying goes "it never gets easier, you just go faster".

Also, starting in your 40s with what sounds like a non-athletic background means you don't have any of the shortcuts (aka a big engine) of others who might have been great/gifted at a non-tri related sport, but who can pick things up and go well right out of the gate. Around here you get collegiate rowers who decide to hop on a bike and smash out 400+W for 10+mins on the hills, talk about demoralizing for even all the roadies who have been at it for a long time!

Because you are starting from scratch, you will be seeing gains of a (relative) size that many of the faster/stronger guys would kill for. Enjoy that ride and feeling before things start becoming harder to improve, if not plateau-ing! In my case, while I do enjoy a 300+W FTP with little training due to years/decades of riding and bike racing, the challenge of increasing my FTP by even 5% represents a massive time commitment if I wanted to tackle it.

I would also expect that you can see gains across all 3 disciplines in parallel as you ramp things up for the next year or 2, which is a luxury compared to more mature/experienced athletes who will often have to focus on a single discipline in order to move their level up.

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I used to be skinny,fit and fast.I have even won a few races but I can tell you that I get far more inspiration from the slow,overweight newbies who are trying so hard to overcome things that so many faster people just don't understand.After years of illness,injury and the following depression I ended up putting on so much weight that I added over 50lbs to my 5'7" frame and went over the 200lbs mark.

With that weight gain came so many obstacles and social changes which shocked me into actually being glad I put on the weight because it made me realize just how hard it is for overweight triathletes to face every day training and racing.It made me a better and more caring person.

I was publicly shamed,I had people make fun of me at events,my 30 years worth of knowledge of the sport in people eyes seemed to apparently vanish as "fat athletes" can't possibly know anything. All that led to me being too ashamed to go to the pool,to join any groups and had me bed bound with depression and the constant process of thinking about creative ways of killing myself without bothering anyone.I moved to the place I am now so nobody in the pool knows me,I ride alone,I run alone,I do everything alone because of the shit I got and the looks in the eyes of "friends" who I used to train and race with.I hid in a small village in Thailand for almost two years and I will be eternally grateful to the guys from the Thailand Triathlon Association for accepting me "as is".

It is interesting because,in the last year or so I have joined the Bikepacking community here in Australia and have been welcomed with open arms as an overweight slow guy and it is awesome.The triathlon community that used to love to introduce me to their friends,as that Ultraman guy,have now pretty much cast me out.I no longer fit the acceptable mould.

There is a saying credited to Greg Lemond that goes "It never gets easier you just get faster", well I can tell you as I have told others, that is such a load of crap because when you are fat and slow and sick everything is harder.When I was fit and winning Ultraman's everything was easier.Getting out of bed was easier,getting the motivation to train was easier,running was easier, getting aero was easier,riding up hills was easier,tying shoelaces was easier,wiping my ass was easier. When I was fit everything was easier, so I have much respect for you and the challenges you face.Keep up the good work.

I am on the road back now and the advice I'll give you is to just take it one day at a time and not look to other peoples results as they are irrelevant in your journey.Just do you own thing and as long as those things are being done for the right reasons,in the spirit of your own journey then the positives will be so worth it.

when i first started cycling about 4 years i could barely hold 180 watts for more than a couple of minutes. it was a massive struggle.

i had a 2 hour workout yesterday with 10 intervals (1 min on, 2 off) then an hour of easy Z2 work. my overs were a little over 300 watts, steady state was 175 watts.

today my long run day was a 2 hour Z1 and Z2 "easy" run. i had to pull it way back on the pace to not get more than a half mari in those two hours. i remember my first half left me with jelly legs for the rest of the day and i was sore for nearly a week. im walking around after my workout like its a normal day.

the thing that is cool to me is that comparatively im not even that fast. there are some out there that will smoke me on course, and i like that. it means i still have room to grow.

endurance sports takes time and consistency to get better, and that means patience. your training will take time to see results but if you stick with it you will get faster in time, and seeing results from all the time and work put in will really give you a great feeling of self accomplishment. it sounds cliche, but it really is a journey.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

The first tri I did, I breast stroked the whole swim and came out of the water third last.

7 years later I was comfortably swimming 29:xx for 70.3 and 1:02 in my first IM.

Consistency over years, not weeks or months, is the ticket to success for regular mortal athletes like us. Just hang in there and enjoy the lifestyle and training. The race times will drop and they are just the cherry on top of the endurance multi-sport lifestyle.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Just enjoy the journey, BallsJesus, and:

-don't compare yourself to others.
-surround yourself with supportive people
-don't expect to have meaningful conversations about Tri with people who don't Tri!
-eat well, sleep well, and be consistent.
-but do give yourself time off and don't feel guilty about it.
-set yourself small achievable goals. An FTP of 4W/kg might not be achievable in the near future, but 5 or 10% increase probably is.
-whatever sport you're doing, do it with a smile on your face.
-in a few short years, you'll be one of the ones other athletes look to for help and guidance. Go out of your way to help those people.

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http://www.howesgreg.com

I likely will get savaged for this reply as it does not conform to the beliefs of the typical statements in this forum, so you can laugh at my expense.

1. If you have completed multiple Oly's in a season you have done a lot. Be proud. If you have done a bunch of 1/2 marathons and a full you have completed the average persons lifetime goal. Be proud.

2. If your goal is to finish races don't read the forum. The forum belittles times that will qualify you for not only nationals but also for worlds.

3. The forum has proven that all age groupers are doping in real life as well as virtually; however all of the times posted in the forums are legitimate and you believe them; )

4. The forum doesn't want to admit how it is nearly impossible to race middle of the pack at an IM brand event without drafting.

5. You have to crash and burn to go faster. Failure is necessary. For your hours per week, age, and BMI you can be way faster at 13.1 miles. Try racing your next 1/2M at a pace that will make you explode at 10 miles and figure out how to get the last 5k to the finish. For your next Oly do the bike as an all out 40K time trial and gut out the run faster than your threshold (If you succeed you biked too slow).

6. Your power meter is slowing you down and allowing you to under train. If you are as new to bike racing as your post implies you should have a higher FTP on a weekly basis - your training zones are always too low.

7. Every hill must be crushed for 2 years. Again based on your running speed and limited bike racing - you will benefit from the speed and power work. It is also hard to injure yourself going up hill.

8. Do a full gas Oly distance brick every Tuesday on the same course (but have an indoor and outdoor course). This assumes a long zone 3 ride Saturday and long EZ run Sunday. Make sure to write the bike and run time on a piece of paper in a way that you can see a whole year at a glance with 3 columns to see three years when you get that far. Yes this must be written and it must be posted on a wall. Photo copy this paper every month for when you lose something.

9. For the last decade winning professional IM bike power profiles have been posted. A very common profile is .80 IF @ 270 watts. That is a FTP of 335, so if you truly do 300+ FTP you can qualify for anything as an age grouper.

10. If you do Sprint, Oly and 70.3 races you are definitely a triathlete. If you do an IM branded 140.6 you are possibly a triathlete but equally likely to be a hipster with low self esteem.

That's enough for now, and if you don't have fun with triathlon you are taking it to serious.

As a woman, I sometimes find reading forums very hard. Tbh I don't even know what "good" times are for women e.g. in an ironman marathon because most talk is about what the men ran. However, I have always only compared myself to... myself. I was overweight already as a teenager, started running at 28 and started triathlon at 32 (2 years ago). I remember breaking 50 min for 10k and I was so excited. I have no clue where I placed in my age group in that race. Honestly, I'd rather place 15th in my age group but get a personal best instead of placing 3rd in my age group but failing at that pb (when I set out to do one, that is). I have also noticed that a lot of my "non-sporty" friends ask me where I placed in a race. My sporty friends will ask for my time or pace. So to sum it up, for me, intrinsic motivation is most important. I want to beat myself from 6 months ago.

this. this this this, this.

im a little above MOP on the bike so i pass consistently. if i were slower there would be no way to not sit in and draft. courses are (were?) just too full.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

You are just a tri baby. I did my first triathlon in 2009. When out training with my club I could usually stay with the fastest cycling crew and was one of the faster runners in it. It took until 2012 til I felt like I had a race where I biked and ran to my potential. A coach may have improved that process by a year, but I was doing alot of the "right" things already.

In my opinion, one of the neat things about triathlon is that you can always try to optimize performance more. I'm usually FOP at most races I do, but I'm still reviewing data a day or two after each race trying to find areas I could have had a better performance. I've done 9 ironman races, had a few finishes where I've gone under 10 hours as a result of many 20 hour a week training blocks. Even with that, I still don't think I've had an ironman race where I hit the potential like the race in 2012. So like others have echoed, keep working and it will eventually come, but this isn't a sport where you see instantaneous results unless you were already and elite level athlete coming in.

 
Dude, best thread ever!!

I Definitely get you.

I`m a 5'9 former collegian swimmer ( short I know ) that eventually got bored of all Master Swim thing...tried long distance swimming ( not a fan ) and decide to try triathlon again - one of my old coaches pushed me to do it back in 1999 and think I was top 10 in a small local sprint tri but at that time a race that took longer than 15 min was just to long.

So back in 2015 and about 10lbs heavier ( maybe 20...who is counting? ) I decide to give it a go again. It sucked....at that time I was doing 12h working days and my fitness was close to zero.

So in the last 5 year I've been pushing my self to be out there and racing, sprints, Olys, Halfs. And I do see those crazy numbers that people post, 400w FTP, sub 20 5ks.....and my best 1/2 is 1h57m....so not that far from you.

But you know what...I`m not doing it to prove I`m better than anyone. I'm done with competitiveness.....swimming took care of it on my teen years.

I have a job, family, social life . I do it to be healthy, to keep moving, to keep young(ish)

No, I`m not going to Kona and most likely I`ll never do 70.3 Worlds.....and guess what....I`m ok with that. I`m a happy middle of the pack guy

And maybe next year I go back to swimming ( kind of miss swimming nowadays ) and mix with some crossfit/ weight lifting sets

Maybe 2022 I decide to do BBJ again with my brother......who knows....but it's important to keep it moving.

that's my 2cents