Hmm - how long is a piece of string ?

It all depends on you and how quickly you recover, some people can bounce back pretty quickly, others take several months.

After my IM last year I took 1 week off due to a cold, then started back with some easy cycling and swimming, reintroduced running the following week, then at the end of the 3rd week did a halfIM and took 20 mins off my previous years pb....

It really does depend on how you as an individual recover. I did IMLP in '04, & probably took about 10-12 days off afterwards. After that I eased into some short stints in the pool, & short rides of about 45-75 minutes. It did take some time for my run to come back. I didn't feel good on a run for about a month.

i was stupid enough to do go to the pool for an easy swim 2 days after roth. after 10meters of swimming i started to have some sort of freaky panic/claustrofobic attack. i got that about every 10meter. i stopped after 10 minutes. however i was on my bike the saterday after and felt very strong and did a 110k on saterday and a 100k on sunday with a high speed average (i was faster than normal). I did walk a lot of the marathon though, so maybe that had something to do with it.

I think Joe Boness or kjgrog can recommend how much time should be taken off after an ironman.