And at the end of a long, hard day of training, they light up a Camel. That’s one fine smoke. AAAAahhhhhhhhhhhh
Bob C.
A few weeks ago, someone over on gordo’s board took a survey on people’s training volume and then applied a regression analysis to find the amount of training it would should take to get around a 10h IM time.
He came up with these #s:
10700m Swim
185mi Bike
31mi Run
(weekly averages)
The bike # is probably a tad low, but 10km of swimming and 30 mi of running is probably a decent figure.
“Dude, thats not fair. I trained my #$(^ off to own a 14:30 time. I am darn proud of it as well”
This must be the only place in the universe where training for 12-16 hours a week for six months, which delivered me a 14:45 Ironman, could be considered slacking. It sure didn’t feel that way. Hats off to anyone who wants to train for average 22.8 hours a week for seven months. I am sure if I did that I could knock a few hours off my time. However, I have other things to do.
Dude, You are a slacker. I’m a slacker too. I’m HAPPY to find out that I’m a slacker. It means maybe I’m not as slow as I thought. This allows, me to keep dreaming – what if I could train 20+ hours per week? I’ve read about guys that can go sub-eleven on less than 10-12 hours per week training. But if 22.8 is the average for Kona participants, what it shows is that most folks have to work their butts off to qualify for Kona. Surprise, surprise, to be the cream of the crop in this sport, you have to work much harder than folks whose goal is to finish.
You should be proud of your accomplishment. I’m proud of mine. However, my goal on about ten hours per week of training is far different than folks trying for Kona. I’d be silly to think that those folks aiming for Kona didn’t train twice as much as me.
Skid, please don’t report this foolish thread on gordo’s site. 
HH
ok, this thread inspired me to go back and add up the hours from the 6 month ‘training program’ that delivered me to my first (and only) IM finish at IMWA 05 (in about 14 hours)
average weekly hours
Swim: 0.27
Bike: 1.94
Run: 0.46
Total: 2.67
As another posted mentioned… training’s overrated. A willingness to go closer to the cutoff times could see this creep below 2 hours a week in total. looks like Kona requires about a 1000% increase in training volume.
If lack of time is a factor for training, then high intensity trumps base training any day. Read that once somewhere.
It works for me.
Though I haven’t done an IM yet, in long endurance single sport events, I’ve outlasted my training partners who put in lots more base mileage than me.
“No, I did 5 IMs. All under 10:30 including Hawaii two month ago”
Do you feel like you race at potential on less than 20 hours a week? You might turn in some fast times without a lot of training, but all I think that shows is that you have good genetics.
I don’t know if I race at my potential. I started with tris in 01 and did my first IM in 03.
I think I cloud be faster if I trained 20+ hours a week. But I have a family and work 100%. This two factors limit my training two 14-18h in peak weeks.
For me it is more important to spend time with my boys and wife than be faster. The last two years I always reached my goals I ‘dreamed’ of (04: Sub 10, 05: Kona)
But probably I know soon how I do with more training. I will loose my job in April and will only work ~50% from January on.
Felix
I started doing tri’s last year (year before that i did a couple of duathlons,year before that i was a couch potatoe) and did my first IM distance race (roth) in 10.24. I did about 10h-12h a week. I could have gone faster if i didn’t get sick on the bike. I was only able to drink 1 litter of sportdrink and eat 1,5 gel on the bike, so my marathon didn’t go that well. (I also could have gone a lot slower if i didn’t get help from some guy the last 10k. So if he’s on ST, Thanks).
My goal this year is to go sub 9 in roth this year, so i will make more hours a week(if i can).
I have this strange desire to someday just do an ironman with no training to speak of. See what happens. Of course it would be a disaster, but it would be a glorious one.
When training for a IM I usually do about 8-12hrs a week with maybe a couple peak weeks of 17-20hrs. Ive heard of amateurs putting in those kind of hours, but not many. It would be difficult to do with a job, family, and a social life.