I am now trying to develop my “campaign” for next year. Having done 3 IMs over the past 4 years, my times are slowly getting better and now I want to sub 10.
2006 - 13.20 IM France - my first one. massive lesson on cramping and nutrition. Walked 36k of the run;
2008 - 11.22 IM Australia - first race that I think I did ok at…died massively in last 10k of run
2009 - 10.30 IM Australia - felt stronger overall. need to improve running.
Anybody have any thoughts of whether it is possible to take another 45 mins to 1 hour off my time in one season?
I had to do the math myself, 36. He had been racing in local sprints, olys and a few 1/2s since 1987, but 1991 was his first Full Distance. Back then in NA, it was either Kona, Canada or Vineman if you wanted to do a full. GFT was really the first opportunty for him to race a full without a lot of travel. Sure is different today.
Anything’s possible. Now-pro Blake Becker (http://www.blakebecker.com) went from 10:30’s to 9:30’s in one year…and I suspect he may knock another 30+ minutes off of that at Canada and Wisconsin upcoming.
Possible, but it gets MUCH harder to achieve that kind of improvement as your time drops. The likelihood depends on specific information such as the amount and quality of your present training, how successfully you executed your last race plan, and your stand-alone pace for the three sports. That said, go for it!
It will be much easier if you’re a guy. 9:30 for a girl is in the money if not winning the race. 9:30 for the guy might get you to Kona as an age-grouper. Like someone else mentioned, it becomes exponentially harder to take off time the closer you get to the front of the event, all things being equal.
When you get to this level it;s helpful to start to look at IM results sheets at your target IM race, and see the range of splits that people are doing to reach those sorts of times. So let’'s look at 10:00 hrs for example: A well balanced guy who can swim/bike/run well is going to have splits of roughly - 1:00/ 5:30/3:30 Give or take a bit on each split( 5 minutes of variation on the swim and then maybe 10 minutes of variation on both the bike and the run splits - but still all adding up to make 10:00). How does your current splits match up? Can you see yourself getting close to or under these times in a year?
Do you have anything productive to offer on this thread, or are you just trying to promote your boyfriend’s website?
If you knew your WI triathletes, you would have used a bona-fide result at an IM as an example (like Justin Henkel’s 8:56 at IMCDA), instead of some 2-bit pro like becker who seems content with racing a bunch of local tris and whipping up on a bunch of amateurs (unless Will Smith shows up).
I dropped my PR from 12:03 at Florida 07 to 11:02 at CDA 09…with a 12:45 performance at IM LOU in 08 in the middle.
Granted I didnt do it in one year, but dropping 60 minutes off a PR is doable…I recognize that dropping from 10:30 to 9:30 is MUCH harder that what I did.
There are a number of factors that played into the better performance…another year of training, second consecutive year with a great coach, ideal weather at IM CDA…and lots of training.
First, do not think about finish times at all. That is the best way for bad race day execution. And courses and weather have a huge impact as well.
Second, if your “problem” is race day execution, you can get your times far down between two races by simply doing the right race day plan. If you are currently not fit enough to go faster then 10:30 you are going to need more time then one year for 1 hour improvement.
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