I am new to the site and have found a lot of the information and comments on this site invaluable. I started visiting the site about 4 months ago shortly after signing up for my first IM (Madison, WI) but decided today it was time to register so I could post from time to time.
I am a life long athlete/competitive swimmer and have been running half and full marathons for the last 6 years. I tried an olympic triathlon last summer and was hooked. The environment and fellow competitors were something I have never experienced. I hired a coach shortly after deciding to take this race on and have to say it was the best decision for me as a first timer. Having a coach has taken a lot of the guess work out training and the feed back has been great so far!
Initially I just wanted to finish but now that I am seeing my bike and run improve. Recently I have been starting to wonder what kind of finish time I might have while at the same time I want to respect the distance and effort it is going to take. My question for all of you veterans out there would be should I even be looking at a goal finish time or just try to enjoy the experience?
234 more days
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
I am in the same exact boat you are in… I am registered for IMFL… Although my ultimate goal is just to finish I would also like to finish with a decent time…
Welcome aboard. I was in the same position as you a couple years ago. After a few full Mary’s I decided to take a shot at a sprint tri and was searching for something over on BT when I came across a thread about the asshats over here at ST. Doing my first full IM in November, so you will pop your cherry before me. Have you ventured off to the Lavender Room yet?
I would say just enjoy the experience. You’ll probably develop a time goal in the back of your mind as your training progresses and your fitness improves. But so much can happen over 140.6 miles, be prepared to throw that goal out and tell yourself that it is a success as long as you finish. You can always do another one and improve on that time, but if the first one isn’t fun you probably won’t be back for another.
I think with the first IM the big goal is to just finish, particularly if you’re new to Triathlon. That being said, establishing a series of other goals and stretch goals can be a really great way to approach it and keep training on track over the course of your build.
Your coach will be able to help you set more time specific goals as you get closer to the race (let’s face it, 220 days of consistent training can change a lot, particularly as you build bike fitness).
Some possible micro goals to look at for race day will be things like even pacing the bike, running X% of your open marathon time, negative splitting the run, etc.
All these will push you towards a better overall finish, and are self-definable (aka no one else can truly screw them up for you on race day).
Good luck with it all, and remember, just because we’re a snarky, elitist bunch, doesn’t mean we don’t care!
I recently did my first full IM after a bunch of halfs. In addition to a coach, which you already have, I’d add a power meter. The two of them will get you through.
I had a time goal, which I beat. I figured I might only do this once, or maybe once every five or ten years, and at 45 I figured I’d never be any faster. I’m glad I did it that way, just in case I never make it back.
More precisely, I had a couple of time goals, as I do with every race. An “everything goes perfectly” time, a “realistic” time, a “things went badly” time, and a “hell broke loose” time of 17 hours. Until you know what the temperature/wind/water conditions will be, even a perfectly executed race might vary an hour from perfect conditions to poor (esp. hot) conditions. Trust your coach on specific time goals.
Even more precisely, I focused on the moment. If my swim stroke is solid and I’m not too winded or too relaxed, that’s the right pace. If I’m at the right power on the bike, that’s the right speed. If I’m at the right HR on the run, that’s the right pace. The finish time just happens as the result.
Try not to worry about finish time at any point during the race, which is not the same as not having a goal.
My question for all of you veterans out there would be should I even be looking at a goal finish time or just try to enjoy the experience?
These are not exclusive concepts. You should always try to enjoy the experience and make that your number 1 goal. However, setting a time goal for your first IM is a often practice in futility. No one, including you or your coach, knows how your body will respond to the race. People that set time goals (myself included) tend to lose sight of the fun in both the journey and the race. Advice: Ignore time goals. Do the race and enjoy yourself enough to want to do a second. Then, set improvement goals.
I would say just enjoy the experience. You’ll probably develop a time goal in the back of your mind as your training progresses and your fitness improves. But so much can happen over 140.6 miles, be prepared to throw that goal out and tell yourself that it is a success as long as you finish. You can always do another one and improve on that time, but if the first one isn’t fun you probably won’t be back for another.
+1
I had a goal time in my mind for my first but the overall goal was to enjoy the race and finish injury free. The training sucks, but the confidence from you logging the laps in the pool and miles on the bike & run will make race day fun enjoyable experience.
Make sure you pop back on here after your race and give us a race report and let us know how you did.
If you use a power meter on the bike and GPS for running, you should be able to get a good idea of what your final time should be (barring any serious issues during the race). At some point you should be doing some “race rehearsals” where you ride approx 6 hours followed by an hour run. If the elevation is similar to that of the race, you should have a good idea of what your bike time will be. The hour run afterwards will give you a good idea of what your pace will end up being (in all the IMs I’ve done, my run pace is consistently 10% slower than my stand-alone marathon pace). Lastly, a few 2-mile OWS will give you a fair idea of your swim time. Transitions are a mixed bag as they sometimes include lengthy runs from the swim to T1 or the bike to T2. But reading course descriptions will fill in some blanks. Add all this together and you’ll at least have a ballpark number. A guesstimated “finish time” can be a limiter so don’t put too much stake on it. Just make sure your first time you take it all in and enjoy it, but it doesn’t hurt to try and be a little competitive with yourself either.
You said you are a “life long ATHLETE/COMPETITIVE swimmer…”
Yes you should have a goal finish time (I’m willing to bet you’ve already toyed around with it based on other results)…By the sounds of it, you’re not going to be a midnight finisher so why not set yourself some goal timeS? (ie: Perfect day, excellent day, very good day, good day, acceptable day, bad day)
I used my Half Iron race 4 months before my first full this year to set my goals and it was quite interesting to see how close I was. I predicted that if I had an absolute perfect day, I could be in the 10:50-11:00 hour range and I had the perfect day and finished 10:56. I was within 2 minutes of my predicted swim time, 1 minute of my predicted T1 time, 2 minutes of my predicted bike time, 1 minute of my T2 time and 5 minutes of my run time. Yes a lot can happen in your first race at that distance, but someone with a background and experience (ie: already running halfs and full marathons and a competitive swim background) like you should have some solid goals.
I’m sorry, but the whole “Just finish and enjoy your first” shit drives me nuts. I had goal times and still ejoyed it.
As you are attempting an IM distance while still relatively new to the sport keep in mind that even the Pros take a couple of shots at it before they go all in.
This event is different to all the others. An Olympic distance will mostly leaves you feeling pleasantly exhausted and a half only slightly shattered. You bounce back pretty quickly.
But the full distance takes you places you haven’t been before. Don’t ruin your enjoyment of the sport by having any unrealistic expectations. Or allowing others to set your goals.
You already know how fast the swim will be, and you know how fast you can run a marathon, all you have to sort out is how big a hole you want to dig on the bike.
The actual event (or race) starts about 12 miles into the run.
The rest is a warm up.
