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1st to 2nd Ironman
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Was wondering what peoples experiences were after completing their first Ironman and then going for their 2nd? Did your times improve greatly? Same training? More training? Obviously more experience. Just looking for stories. PSA; It's taco Tuesday
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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I was much slower in my second than my first. First was the Full Vineman in 2011 and I was well prepared for it. My second was St George 2012 where I learned a hard lesson from mother nature and how a successful first IM should not necessarily mean you can now just focus on getting faster. Unique courses and challenging weather may totally change your race from something with time goals to trying to survive and finish. I was about 3.5h slower in St George than Vineman.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [Benv] [ In reply to ]
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Benv wrote:
I was much slower in my second than my first. First was the Full Vineman in 2011 and I was well prepared for it. My second was St George 2012 where I learned a hard lesson from mother nature and how a successful first IM should not necessarily mean you can now just focus on getting faster. Unique courses and challenging weather may totally change your race from something with time goals to trying to survive and finish. I was about 3.5h slower in St George than Vineman.

Had a similar experience this past weekend in Boulder.

First IM was IMAZ 2016, went 12:30. I knew the conditions this weekend would be tough, so I was not really expecting to beat my IMAZ time (though I am in better shape and faster now), went 14:04 this weekend.

There are too many variables to compare your first time to your second. Unless it's the same race with similar weather, it's a total crap shoot.

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Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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I had a gap year in between the first and second Ironman, and was highly motivated for an improvement in overall time. I even chose an easier course to "ensure" a new PR :-). I upped the training with almost 25% in overall volume, but I mistakenly went with a too narrow focus on improvement in biking-FTP and run speed (swim was already OK). I haven't done the exact calculation, but I probably upped the training time in Z3/Z4 with over 50%...?

First time around my worry was the distances and my ability to keep form and speed throughout, so I did quite a lot of longer sessions in Z1 and had a conservative race strategy. Second time around I felt experienced (wrong!) and since I was going for a new personal best, I also followed a more agressive race strategy. Needless to say I blew it from the start, but did not realize before I was 3-4k out on the run. The rest of the day was looong! I still managed to set a new personal best, but only improved with 6 minutes.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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Mine were 3 years apart, knocked just under an hour off my time (12:3x to 11:3x). Most of that was the bike. Bike is my strongest leg and I'd done plenty of centuries prior to the first IM so wasn't worried about it, but was pretty intimidated by the idea of running my first marathon off the back of the bike. So my prep for the first IM had a real run focus, plus I was on a road bike with clip on bars and shallow rim wheels, and paced the bike pretty easy. Run went well with a small negative split. Second time around I did similar training volumes, was a bit better with my diet and went in 6-8lbs lighter, and was more like 60:40 in my bike:run training, having been about 50:50 the first time. Also bought myself a tri bike with decent wheels and was a bit more aggressive with my bike pacing. Knocked an hour off the bike, was on track to be slightly faster in the run as well but had some cramp in the last 5 miles and finished a few minutes slower. So basically similar volumes but more experience, better equipment and smarter training made the difference.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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I took a year off between my first and second Ironman. My first was Ironman Mont Tremblant in 2013. I blew away my expectation finishing in just under 11 hours. I really enjoyed the race, but I was only interested in doing another if I felt like I could be competitive in my age group. Just aiming to finishing another wouldn't motivate me to do the training. I took most of 2014 off of triathlon to focus on running, and I was able to make some really big improvements. So much so that I decided to go back to Ironman, and raced Ironman Canada in 2015. I got smarter with my training, followed a TrainerRoad plan, got a power meter, and took over an hour off my time. In 2013 was I likely training 9-10 hours a week, then in 2015 it would have been closer to 14-15 hours, and those hours were much higher quality.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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I did my first at age 51 at IMFL on a fantastic weather day I've never experienced since. That, plus getting older and choosing progressively harder IMs means I've never beaten my first IM and never will.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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First LC October, second the following July cause I was pissed about a fucked up run. Went out smarter and improved 35 mins on the run only...but I’m still pissed about the bike breakdown which costs me 20 mins, without that I would have been an hour faster...ended up 11:25 vs 12:06.
4 weeks after that I ran my pb (4:58) on HIM with an improvement over 10 mins (same course).

-shoki
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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First IM was Lanzarote 1999: Average weekly training was 8hrs. Swim 1:00 Bike 6:57 Run 4:42 Overall 12:46 Age 26

Second IM Lanzarote 2000: Average weekly training 14hrs Swim 0:50 Bike 6:16 Run 4:05 Overall 11:22 Age 27

I had no idea what I was doing for the first one and just sort of guessed what training I should do. No internet forums in those days! For the second one I had a friend who was taking a course in triathlon coaching who helped me train for it. Both races were done on a road bike with clip on aero bars. I have now done 11 IM and, whilst I've gone quicker on faster courses, I've never had a better race than my second IM.
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Re: 1st to 2nd Ironman [xcchampion11] [ In reply to ]
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Off similar hours I did 10:09 at my second full (Cedar Point 2016) vs 11:35 at my first (IMFL 2013). While the hours were the same I had much better fitness off the extended base miles. Dropped down to 9:41 at IMFL with a similar training plan and a sub par bike and run. Going to try Lou next year
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