Background: I’m a 50 year old AG. I’ve done an Ironman a year for the past 14 years. I can pull a standalone 3 hour marathon if I train for one. I’m a horrible horrible horrible swimmer and somewhat decent on the bike. I just got a spot for the IM Championship in Nice. A few years back, I attempted racing 2 Ironmans on back to back weekends. I had to bail on the bike about 50 miles into the 2nd one due to a mechanical issue. I didn’t feel any ill-effect on the bike nor the swim during the 2nd race before bailing. I might have felt the effect of back to back Ironman weekends during the 2nd run, but never had a chance to get to the run.
Assuming that my “A” race in the one in Nice. I have a chance to do an Ironman either 2 or 4 weeks before my A race. From a performance/physiological point of view, is it better to do your “A” race 2 or 4 weeks after the first one? The question isn’t whether I should do one at all that close to my A race. The question is, which is the better choice, 2 or 4 weeks? I’m going to treat the 1st one as a long brick workout day.
I did 3 in 6 weeks a few years back, Texas, Florida and Cozumel. The Texas to Florida 4 weeks apart wasn’t bad, did have a bad car crash that derailed a lot of things. Then 2 weeks later in Cozumel for a more laid back wedding party event, yeah another fun story.
I’d space it out to 4 if possible just to get the. Oft recovered, especially for a WC where you’ll be going hard with the competition
It would be better if your A race was before the other one otherwise you’ll spend the time in between recovering and losing fitness.
I’d say 4 weeks is doable but your A race is going to be whichever race is earlier.
Otherwise, I’d consider a shorter race before the A Ironman, that would be a more common approach.
I’ve done an Ironman 3 or 4 weeks apart. I did a very similar time in the two races, I wouldn’t recommend it. 4 weeks should be doable.
I did Calidornia and Arizona last year, 4 weeks apart, felt great at both. Had less pressure to perform in Arizona since i had a great race 4 weeks prior so i also felt like i was able to race harder. figured if I blew up, oh well. A race was california for me, the first one. allowed me to control more of the peak and taper into it. after California i did no training for 4 days. 7 days of pure Z1-2, then repeated the exact same 2 peak weeks as before then an 8 day taper. I’m going to do the same this year.
Do you want to do well at Nice? Just asking because an IM 4 weeks before an A race even done at a very slow pace is not a good idea. I agree with marco that it would be better to try the second one 4 weeks after your race. It’s about the risk vs benefit. The risk is relatively high. Most people feel that if they do an IM really slow, that they can recover super quickly. But we often ignore what is actually going on in our bodies and just assume that excess fatigue “should be there”. Even if you raced the first IM entirely in Zone 1, a cardiac phenomenon still occurs called cardiac drift; this means that even at your lowest effort, eventually your HR will start to increase into zone 2 and easily zone 3. So, the risk becomes for the second race: your body could react very unexpectedly in the middle of Nice. Or, you develop a severe tendonitis and are forced to walk a lot. Or, you wake up race morning and your body for some reason says: “fuck no, I need more rest!”
With a 3 hour capable marathon athlete, I would vaguely guess you can do a 10:30 IM on a good day. No training plan at IM distance has a single training day of 10+ hours. Though, with all of this being said, it is entirely possible you race 4 weeks apart and do fine. Just saying the relative risk is much higher than a lot of people realize
I did Ironman Florida and Ironman Arizona 15 days apart once. Felt good through about halfway through the marathon, then I had a wall of fatigue hit me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before or since. For context first race was 9:56 and 2nd race was 10:41.
If you do an IM 2 or 4 weeks before your A race, it’s going to be in your legs in Nice. It’s up to you if it’s more important to race twice than go all-in on your goal race. There’s none of this I’d be treating it as a brick day stuff. It’s a ton of time on the feet. I would think about a shorter race 6-10 weeks before Nice. & then time a full after Nice if you want to hit another one. But you said that’s not what you were asking so I would absolutely go with 4 weeks before. 2 weeks doesn’t leave you enough recovery time. 4 weeks doesn’t either but you can basically have a down week, an easy week, a normal week, and a taper week. You’ll lose a little fitness but could come reasonably close to the same type of effort. I would be intentional with your recovery after the 2nd IM.
I’ll probably probably defer one of my IMs and just concentrate on Nice. Or, I may just transfer to another one, a month or 2, after Nice. I have 1 month to decide
