2.5 time Ironman finisher Dad here, asking advice about my 18 year old son. He’s obsessed with Ironman, and desperately wants to do Ironman Canada in Penticton August '24. He’ll be at less than a month past the 18 year old minimum age. I know this is a rare occurrence for a kid that age to want to go the full distance in Tri.
Mainly asking the medical community- thoughts on an 18 year old training responsibly for his first Ironman completion? Is this smart for his overall health at such a young age?
He’s quite trained as of now. Just under 20:00 5k, and has completed a “training” marathon in Z2 in 5 hours. Trains about 10 hours per week as of now, following the 80/20 protocol, mostly easy miles.
How did you handle it when he asked, out of curiosity. “I’m going to ask Slowtwitch?â€
He’s been obsessed since he was 12 and witnessed Canada '18 in Whistler. I’ve known for many years, he’s absolutely driven intrinsically. He has my full support, but I’m wanting to be v prudent about his health when his body is still very much developing due to age.
Yes, he’s done many short course Tri’s, loves them, but wants to go full.
2.5 time Ironman finisher Dad here, asking advice about my 18 year old son. He’s obsessed with Ironman, and desperately wants to do Ironman Canada in Penticton August '24. He’ll be at less than a month past the 18 year old minimum age. I know this is a rare occurrence for a kid that age to want to go the full distance in Tri.
Mainly asking the medical community- thoughts on an 18 year old training responsibly for his first Ironman completion? Is this smart for his overall health at such a young age?
He’s quite trained as of now. Just under 20:00 5k, and has completed a “training” marathon in Z2 in 5 hours. Trains about 10 hours per week as of now, following the 80/20 protocol, mostly easy miles.
Thanks!
Andy
Sounds like he’s already a lot further along than I was when I started training for my first full at 18. I think realistically only his doctor could say what sort of things training may mess up his body or not because at 18 so many people are different in terms of body maturity. But I’d be surprised if there’s any sort of long term risk outside of something you don’t already know about like a serious deformity. Maybe don’t let him go full guns blazing if you’re worried about it that much because he probably could muscle through speed workouts that aren’t in scale with what his endurance ability will match up to and he may try to push too hard during the longer stuff to match.
Not a doctor, but l did get a degree in human physiology.
Will it kill him? No. Is it advisable if you want him to participate in and love the sport for a lifetime? Hell no.
To avoid permanent burn out and for the maximum development of speed, a healthy body, and a healthy long lasting attitude toward sport, l would keep him at sprint distance or Olympic distance until 25 and not have him do a full IM until close to 30. He’ll have plenty of time to do every distance under the sun.
I would be very clear to him about what your potential concerns are and if it was your decision what you would do and why you think it might be wiser not to do it. But at 18 I believe it his decision and he must bear responsibility for what he decides.
Perhaps an anecdote. My sister who was not great at other sport fell in love with running as a teenager. She ran Comrades (90km ultra marathon) at 18. She would have deeply resented my parents if they had not allowed her not to do it. I have never asked her if she would change it in hindsight but she is still in love with running at 42.
And she has had a few stress fractures hasn’t she?
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She has repeatedly mentioned her hip,the rehab and her bone density scans in her videos.Her latest video talks about her foot issue as well as her new scans. Stress fractures are not uncommon in endurance athletes,especially females, but Lucy seems to be on top of her issues.
20 year old here (almost 21) who did his first 70.3 at 18, and focuses on 70.3’s now. From my perspective it for certain would likely be doable, but I wouldn’t advise it in terms of potential knock on long term impacts/injury risk.
I’ve always wanted to do a full, particularly as I generally believe the longer/more attritional a race gets the more it suits me (my best 70.3 result is in Swansea this year on a brute of a course in the wet and wind). However, simply from listening to my body in racing and training I’ve found that going for much further than a 70.3 just is asking too much of my body and I wind up injured or just in too deep of a hole to manage uni and just small bits like shopping etc alongside training. I’ll add the disclaimer that I have a 1.5cm or thereabouts leg length discrepancy after a broken femur when I was younger that for sure makes me more prone to picking up injuries/niggles from the imbalance but even without this I can see myself being in a similar situation.
I’d also add; just turning 18 I’d assume that will mean the run up into the race will involve important exams etc at school if its run similar to how it is here in the UK? Definitely worth considering the impact having to get large volumes of training in to ensure you are ready for a full alongside studying and revising with the stress of important exams will combine; for me I find through exam seasons I like to train to help with stress; but it is not on a plan through the period and purely what I feel like doing to keep fitness whilst focusing on getting through the period. When I’ve tried to keep training high and specific for an event with pressure on through exam periods it’s just been a case of too much stress from too many sources, not saying this would be the case but it’s worth considering the impact of other factors such as this with the build up into the event.
As a small aside, I have a friend who did go long at 18/19, and has done two fulls (he’s 21/22 now I believe). He really enjoys the longer stuff but regrets going for full’s so soon as it’s led to him struggling for the last season with a bad overuse knee injury that stopped him consistently running for a long period. Yet again, case study of one but worth considering.
Finally, a good way to view it is if you go shorter first it’s a chance to build speed and build up strength so that when you do tackle the full you have got an excellent base of a large number of training years into it, with the skills and tricks of the trade in the locker to really give it a good nudge. This ones my approach, get plenty of seasons of consistent work in slowly building up, focusing on 70.3, then in maybe 3 or 4 years time work into one to see if my hunch that longer and more brutal is what suits me is correct or if I stay with 70.3.
Not a doctor, but l did get a degree in human physiology.
Will it kill him? No. Is it advisable if you want him to participate in and love the sport for a lifetime? Hell no.
To avoid permanent burn out and for the maximum development of speed, a healthy body, and a healthy long lasting attitude toward sport, l would keep him at sprint distance or Olympic distance until 25 and not have him do a full IM until close to 30. He’ll have plenty of time to do every distance under the sun.
^ This
My son grew up watching his dad and uncle race triathlons. Granted he was very eager to join in. I limited his training to 8h per week up to age 16, then 10h per week. I also did not let him do longer distances than Oly. He did REALLY good, podiumed a couple times including 5150. Once he turned 18 I decided that it’s up to him to pick distances and training time.
First 70.3 which he did just after turning 18 crushed him mentally and physically. It was also his last year of doing triathlons or any structured training. Now 7 years later he is considering coming back.
I would be very clear to him about what your potential concerns are and if it was your decision what you would do and why you think it might be wiser not to do it. But at 18 I believe it his decision and he must bear responsibility for what he decides.
Perhaps an anecdote. My sister who was not great at other sport fell in love with running as a teenager. She ran Comrades (90km ultra marathon) at 18. She would have deeply resented my parents if they had not allowed her not to do it. I have never asked her if she would change it in hindsight but she is still in love with running at 42.
I have a similar anecdote about a close friend.
He loved to run when he was a kid and ran his first ultra at 19. 100km in about 8:30, so not too shabby.
Nearly twenty years later, he logged over 10000km in a calendar year, averaging 192km/week, including tapering and recovery from races. Soon after, he ran his marathon PR of 2:17.
He still runs, though not as much now he has young family. Some people love running, (or cycling or swimming). It never leaves them and they never leave it.
Might it be a bad path for some? Yes. But Asa parent your role is to know or anticipate how your kid will respond to different situations.
I know for me when I was about that age “failure” and “suffering” are what drove Mr. The experiences I had where I felt “less than” have been the only ones that have stuck with me across sport and all of life.
I’m lucky my parents recognized that I was motivated by my weaknesses and let me put myself in scenarios to experience them.
Is this true of every kid? No. But there is no single path to success
To the father of this kid:
You have to try to determine how he will respond to an sbsolute failure of this goal.
Will it absolutely crush him? Then perhaps he should wait.
Will he respond and want to improve? Then go for it.
Don’t plan for success, try to understand how he will respond to a failure
Not a doctor, but l did get a degree in human physiology.
Will it kill him? No. Is it advisable if you want him to participate in and love the sport for a lifetime? Hell no.
To avoid permanent burn out and for the maximum development of speed, a healthy body, and a healthy long lasting attitude toward sport, l would keep him at sprint distance or Olympic distance until 25 and not have him do a full IM until close to 30. He’ll have plenty of time to do every distance under the sun.
I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.
If he’s been obsessed with Ironman for 6 years, it’s totally unrealistic to somehow “keep him” (as an adult) from doing an IM for another 12 years, while still being engaged and competing in triathlon. Just not going to happen.
I’m leaning toward telling him to go for it. It may just get it out of his system. If he loves the sport, he might find that going short and fast is way more fun than the unanticipated reality of a grinding out an ugly marathon off a relatively limited base and mileage.
He’ll still have all that time ahead of him to race every distance when it suits him (and his body) best. That’s not going to change.
To put another point in there.
There are 18 year old sorry younger in basically every Profesional sport out there.
Many of those are astronomically more physically and mentally demanding then an ironman.
Nhl playoffs = a multi month struggle against extreme bodily injury and near nightly all out efforts
Tour de France = obvious
Etc.
Etc.
Physically it’s fine. It truly is all about how he will respond if he fails andsetting his goals/expectations right
To put another point in there.
There are 18 year old sorry younger in basically every Profesional sport out there.
Many of those are astronomically more physically and mentally demanding then an ironman.
Nhl playoffs = a multi month struggle against extreme bodily injury and near nightly all out efforts
Tour de France = obvious
Etc.
Etc.
Physically it’s fine. It truly is all about how he will respond if he fails andsetting his goals/expectations right
That is like a definition of selection/survival bias. Looking only at young athletes at the top level, you overlook all those young individuals who didn’t succeed due to injuries, overtraining, mental breakdowns, etc. For every 19-year-old cyclist in the Tour de France, there are thousands who didn’t make it, and probably non trivial amount of them paid with their health.
To avoid permanent burn out and for the maximum development of speed, a healthy body, and a healthy long lasting attitude toward sport, l would keep him at sprint distance or Olympic distance until 25 and not have him do a full IM until close to 30. He’ll have plenty of time to do every distance under the sun.
Well that’s similar to what Ali B did - and he is always injured, he was always injured before he ever went longer than Oly.