I suspect that anyone who is close to a 9:30 IM already has a pretty good idea of what it takes, what their limiters are. I would also say that at this point, it becomes very individualistic and would be hard to generalize for a broad forum. I did a 9:50 at IMCDA in 2008 and have a very clear idea what I would have to do to drop 20 minutes (apart from switching to one of the faster courses). But what it takes for me is probably very different from all of the other 9:45-10:00 IMers out there.
But what it takes for me is probably very different from all of the other 9:45-10:00 IMers out there.
That’s true, but their are some broad stroke generalities out there that I have seen from being both a sub-9:30 person myself and more recently watching and observing people train for a number of years and I pointed out one of those generalities - lack of long non-stop training sessions.
For some it’s going to mean a jump up in volume for others it’s going to be the injection in quite a bit of quality into the training.
Often I have seen the athlete who has reached a bit of a wall in the 10:00 - 9:30 range and if you get into it with them, you find out that they went right to IM training and racing when they started into the sport. They never progressively moved up from sprints/Olympics and 70.3 races. What is needed with this athlete, and it’s more of a long term approach is actually* getting away from IM racing for a year or two* and focusing on sprint and Olympic distance racing, then returning to IM racing. If they have done this right, they will have found their 20 - 30 minutes right there. Not for everyone, but it does work!!
I’m focusing on shorter training going back to my roots and hoping that the inverse works out at long course…I have plenty of years of base now 
:-)…not that it will get me to 9:30 or even sub 10, but if I can go just as fast as a few years ago, with much less training time invested and not slow down as I age up, then that is a good thing cause in general everyone slows down…
I think a point comes when the long training just makes us slower, not faster…for multiple time Ironman guys, there is no question that they can cover the distance…the question is how quickly
I’m focusing on shorter training going back to my roots and hoping that the inverse works out at long course…I have plenty of years of base now :-)…not that it will get me to 9:30 or even sub 10,
Dev,
In 1997 my last year that I raced seriously, I was not even sure that I was going to race at IMC that year. My son was being born in July - a month before the event. Winter training had been lackadaisical - it was one of those no snow winters on the west coast, so minimal xc-skiing for me - usually the thing that keeps me going.
I think that going into the race that year I put in about 1/2 of the volume that I normally did. But I had some running, bike TT results and some tri results over shorter distances that indicated fitness in an absolute way, was not that far off. I was a little anxious going into the race, as I think that I had done one ride over 4.5 hours and my longest run was 2 hours. Took the whole winter off swimming and did not get back the water until May!! However, pretty much all other training was really booking it. Went 9:30 that year and closed with a 3:10 run! Miracles do happen!
One advice. Don’t chase a certain time. It all depends on the conditions and other things you can’t control. I chased times sometimes and always failed because of going too fast. I broke 9:30 when I never cared about doing so. Just caring about the proper training of today and tomorrow and not more than that. The rest just have to be ignored, so go out and train good, don’t do stupid things and if conditions are good you might go under 9:30. You have 8-9 hours to go too fast and screw up your race. Just stay calm and don’t be affraid to go to easy! If you stupidly chase a power or pace level for 8 hours I don’t give you a high change of breaking it.
What is good training depends on the athlete. My good training might not be good for you, so I can’t help you here.
I heard you had one what are your thoughts on them?
did you get my last
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