What’s up all, first time message poster, long time reader!
With all of the experience posted on this site, I figured I would gather some advice both good and bad
of things to consider, ponder, and watch out for re: my first IM this summer. Training has been going
great, except for the winter here in Montana, which equals “trainer city” for the bike. I’m looking to acquire
any and all advice that is willing to be given, so in essence, I’m looking for free stuff just like everyone else.
I Appreciate any thoughts and comments.
My friend that did her first IM and Louisville this year came up with this great advice:
“Eat, drink, and be merry”
.
-enjoy the day
-stay on top of your nutrition and hydration
-don’t go to hard on the bike
-be adaptable in case your “plan” dosen’t go as “planned”
-have fun
.
I think the best advice I got last year was go out and stick your nose in the wind and ride for 5 or 6 hours every weekend. Really long rides are the oppurtunity to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.
run off the bike 1-2 times/wk
run 5-6 times/wk
bike long a LOT in the summer
make sure you get nutrition down- some folks have a really tough time w/ this.
Enjoy it! Its not the insurmountable, soul-crushing monster some make it out to be.
IRONLOBO hit the nail on the head. To that I will add:
Some people think Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run; and it most certainly is. Firstly though, it is 10-17 hours of non-stop, continuous low intensity aerobic exercise. Your first goal in preparation is to prepare for exercise at a low level that is 11-17 hours in duration. Ask yourself: When was the last time you exercised *non-stop *for 11-17 hours? For most people the answer is either “never” or, “The last time I did Ironman.” In either case, the primary goal of your preparation has to be keyed toward *consistent, low intensity aerobic exercise for 11-17 hours. *
At a slightly lower level: The same group still believes that Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run; and it still is. But what it *really *boils down to for most of us mere mortals is a half marathon done when we really belong in the emergency room. The first 9 hours of the event is a study in damage control. The “race” is really a battle of attrition perfromed over the final four hours when you are simply trying to keep on moving at some type of reasonable pace.
Last year I lost 22 minutes *in the final two hours *of an Ironman run. That is classic bad preparation. I didn;t do enough long training and enough long miles on the run. If the race had ended at 9 hours I would have been awesome. Trouble is, I had about 2 hours to go after that and that is where I lost all my time. I was adequately prepared for the first 9 hours, ill equipped for final 2 and that is what bit me.
Train for the long run- literally and figuratively.
Best of luck!
You didn’t say anything anything about your goals or which race - that might help get you better advice. But…
Overall:
- Remember that the hardest part is getting to the starting line.
Training:
- Ride your bike - a lot
- Run at least a little bit every time you get off your bike - even just around the block
- Practive your nutrition strategy every time you go out.
- If your nutrition strategy doesn’t work - change it.
- Training is all about 1 long swim, 1 long bike, and 1 long run every week. The rest is filler.
- Do everything you can to get those three long workouts in.
- Don’t panic or freak out if you miss some of the filler.
- If you absolutely can’t get it all in for a given week - skip the swim workout.
Race Day:
- Have fun
- Make a list long beforehand and use it.
- Have fun
- Don’t sweat the little things - everything’s going to be OK.
- Have fun
- Treat the swim like a slow warm up.
- Have fun.
- Go easy on the bike - if you think you’re going about right, you’re probably going too fast.
- Have fun.
- Know that, yes, the run will hurt.
- Have fun
- Smile when you cross the finish line
- Don’t say “I’ll never do that again” - because you will.
This list was posted by someone here a while ago. It’s pretty funny but I know at my first IM last year I found myself doing a lot of the items on here, so many of them are funny yet true.
Good luck.
The 99 steps of a typical IM trip
Arrive in town.Find over-priced accommodations you are staying a minimum of four nights atUnpack bicycle, spread gear around room randomly.Attempt to reassemble bicycle, realize you forgot to mark your seat and handlebar position before disassembly. Guess position and tell yourself it won’t make a big difference.Drive bike course at slow speeds while making wrong turns. Annoy locals.Find swim venue. Put wetsuit on, stand around for 15 minutes. Swim 10 minutes, take wetsuit off. Look around to see if you impressed anyone.Walk around expo looking for free stuff.Go to registration tent, stand in line, get bag, check bag for goodies.Go back to hotel, arrange energy products into different piles. Stare at piles.Spend 2 hours preparing for bike ride with race wheels and drink systems. Go for 30 minute ride. Go back to hotel.Decide that this would be a great opportunity to learn how to rebuild your rear hub to fix the play in it. Disassemble hub.Drive to house where your club mate, the bicycle mechanic, is staying. Show him the pieces of your rear wheel. Beg for help.Go to swim start Friday morning. Look for tell-tale wrist-bands on other competitors; look condescendingly at all those swimming who aren’t participating in the race.Go back to hotel, spend 4 hours attaching numbers to your bicycle, helmet, and race outfit. Panic that you don’t have 8 pieces of reflective tape for your run outfit, even though IMNA has never been known to enforce the rule.Drive down to expo at the last minute, stand in line, pay $10 for a strip of reflective tape.Drive back to hotel, place energy products into various bags.Pack transition bags.Unpack transition bags.Repack transition bags.Drive to Carbo-dinner. Stand in line, proceed through buffet with poor food selection, sit at crowded table, remember you paid an extra $20 each so your family could enjoy this food. Listen to IMNA personnel tell same jokes as last year. Realize that Dave Scott has apparently discovered the fountain of youth. Stand in line to leave.Prep bike to drop off on Saturday, discover your tire has a slow leak. Drive to expo, stand in line, pay $80 for tubular tire. Get back to hotel, realize you don’t know how to glue on a tubular, drive back to expo and have them do it for you.Drop bike off, spend time covering bike with various plastic bags because everyone else is doing it.Drop off your transition bags, realize you forgot your salt tablets, drive back to hotel to get them.Drive back to hotel again, arrange race gear for tomorrow morning.Pack special needs bags.Unpack special needs bags.Repack special needs bags.Realize there is nothing more you can do to get ready. Sit down and relax.Panic.Eat early dinnerGo to bed, lie there in a cold sweat.Wake up at 2:00 am for 1000 calorie bottle of nasty-tasting concoction, “because Gordo does it”.Lie awake listening to horrible weather move into town.Wake up at 4:00 am, listen to spouse complain.Get in car, drive to start. Stand in line to enter the transition area.Check transition bags.Stand in line to get body marked.Check bike, stand in line to get tires pumped up.Stand in line for porta-john.Realize you left your water bottles with special nutrition needs in the fridge at the hotel. Drive back madly to get them.Get back to start, wait in line for parking spot.Stand in line for porta-john.Get wetsuit on, stand in line to enter swim area.Realize it’s too late for a warm up. Stand in line to enter water.Stand in water with 2000 other people while sun comes up and national anthem is sung by local high school girl. Realize that few moments of your life have been this beautiful.Gun goes off, 2000 people attempt to swim on top of you, realize that you are in mortal danger or drowning and few moments of your life have been this dangerous.Get kicked in face, goggles come off, panic and tread water trying to get them back on while people hit you. Remember you paid good money to do this.Exit swim, stand in line to get into transition.Stand in line to get out of change tent. Get bike, stand in line to get out of transition.Start bike, realize that there is no way 1000 people can pack onto a course within 20 minutes without massive drafting problems. Hope that poor bike handlers don’t crash in front of you.Ride bike.Panic that you’ve already fallen off your nutrition plan that your coach gave you.Make up for lost calories and fluids in the next 15 minutes. Feel ill.Ride bike.Get saddle-sore.Ride bikeDecide to piss while riding to save time.Spend the next 30 minutes soft-pedaling, coasting, and practicing mental imagery trying to relax enough to let it go.Give up, get off at aid station and spend 30 seconds in porta-john, get back on bike.Ride bike, feel queasy and bloated, take 3 salt tablets at once to make sure you’re not low on electrolytes. Throw up.Get off bike, sit in change tent wondering why you are doing this. Listen in disbelief to volunteer telling you you’re almost done. Proceed to marathon course.Realize that you should have practiced the 1000 calorie drink at 2:00 am before race day.Throw up, walk, jog, repeat for 26 miles.Start gagging at the thought of another energy gel.Sample the variety of food at aid stations. Discover Oreos, the food of the Gods. Invent the form of locomotion called the ‘ironman shuffle’. Feel proud that your 12 minute mile is technically not walking.Pass your spouse. Make them swear to never let you do another one of these.See finishing chute. Sprint madly down the road high-fiving people and cheering while announcer screams your name. Realize it was all worth it.Get to finishing chute, wait in line while a man takes his extended family over it with him.Cross line, collapse into arms of patient voluneteers.Spend next two hours in med tent realizing that you should have drunk more fluids when it got hot.Go to massage tent, eat cold pizza and wander around in a daze while wearing an aluminum foil blanket.Stick around finish line until midnight to share in “the ironman spirit”. Beat off 12-year-old to grab free socks thrown into crowd.Look in disbelief at fresh and bouncy professional athletes dancing at the finish line.Cheer last few athletes into the finish before midnight. Ask your spouse if you looked that bad. Be amazed that they spent 17 hours out there moving the whole time.Go back to hotel, collapse in bed.Wake up, go to bathroom, collapse back into bed. Repeat all night until the 6 IV’s the med tent gave you are through your system.Wake up at 4:00 because your legs hurt so much.Eat first breakfast.Sit around until spouse wakes up, eat second breakfast.Shuffle around town Monday morning wearing finishers T-shirt and medal. Smile knowingly at other fellow shufflers. Graciously accept congratulations from locals thankful you came to their town to spend money.Eat third breakfast at all you can eat buffet.Go to Official Finishers merchandise tent. Stand in line. Pick out $200 worth of clothing with prominent logos on it. Stand in line, pay $600 for clothes. Contemplate getting a tattoo to immortalize your achievement.Fall prey to peer-pressure and marketing techniques. Cough up $450 to sign up for the race next year - since it will sell out today, and this is your only chance to sign up!Proceed to IM Hawaii role-down. Hold out hope that, even though you finished 80th in your age-group, this will be the year everyone leaves early and you get the last spot.Eat first lunch.Go back to hotel, stare at the disgusting, sticky, smelly mess that is your bicycle and race clothes. Start packing things up to fly homeEat second lunch.Go to awards dinner, stand in line. Get poor food from buffet, remember you spent $20 a head so your family could enjoy this magical moment with you.Watch hastily-produced race video. Closely examine each frame hoping they caught a glimpse of you on the course. Be disappointed.Watch age-group athletes get their awards. Wonder how many of them actually work for a living, and where you can get some of the performance enhancing drugs they appear to be on.Realize that you have to go all the way up to women’s 70+ age group before you find an age-group your time would have won.Listen to long, excruciatingly boring thank-you speeches from various professional athletes.Stand in line to get out of awards dinner.Go to Airport, stand in line. Deliver $5000 bike to Neanderthal-like baggage handler. Pray. Reluctantly take finishers medal off to pass through metal detector. Proudly tell TSA personnel what you did on your weekend.Get home, contemplate unpacking disgusting bicycle, decide to leave it until tomorrow.Eat Bon-Bons and watch TV. Contemplate unpacking your bicycle and training again, decide to leave it until tomorrow. Repeat above step for 2-10 weeks. Step on scale. Look at your fat, disgusting self in a mirror and remember you signed up for next year’s race. Unpack bike, chip mold off of seat tube. Show up at swim practice again.Get ready to do it all again next year…
Ah, Ironman. Where else can you take your only vacation of the year to a beautiful place and spend the entire time either standing in line or sitting in a hotel room mixing drink concoctions and carefully placing energy products in various bags?
Nutrition – make sure you practice your nutrition many times over.
Weather – make sure your prepared for any weather.
Did IronMan Wisconsin 2007 – 1st IronMan – signed up for Louisville 2008
IM CDA in Idaho june of this year is the race, the goal is to finish in 10:30. I think what is the most
difficult for me is the nutrition, as well as being able to put in quality miles on the bike outside after winter is gone.
I’m currently doing 2-3 hour rides on the trainer (shoot me…) with 3 swims a week and 5 runs a week.
I appreciate all of the wonderful advice, keep it coming!
- Don’t say “I’ll never do that again” - because you will.
That is true.
IRONLOBO hit the nail on the head. To that I will add:
Some people think Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run; and it most certainly is. Firstly though, it is 10-17 hours of non-stop, continuous low intensity aerobic exercise. Your first goal in preparation is to prepare for exercise at a low level that is 11-17 hours in duration. Ask yourself: When was the last time you exercised *non-stop *for 11-17 hours? For most people the answer is either “never” or, “The last time I did Ironman.” In either case, the primary goal of your preparation has to be keyed toward *consistent, low intensity aerobic exercise for 11-17 hours. *
At a slightly lower level: The same group still believes that Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run; and it still is. But what it *really *boils down to for most of us mere mortals is a half marathon done when we really belong in the emergency room. The first 9 hours of the event is a study in damage control. The “race” is really a battle of attrition perfromed over the final four hours when you are simply trying to keep on moving at some type of reasonable pace.
Last year I lost 22 minutes *in the final two hours *of an Ironman run. That is classic bad preparation. I didn;t do enough long training and enough long miles on the run. If the race had ended at 9 hours I would have been awesome. Trouble is, I had about 2 hours to go after that and that is where I lost all my time. I was adequately prepared for the first 9 hours, ill equipped for final 2 and that is what bit me.
Train for the long run- literally and figuratively.
Best of luck!
Tom,
How would you train differently to be better equiped for the final 2 hours?
.
I have had the same problem but lost more like 90 minutes to Toms 22. I am going to try a few new things this year, mainly one, maybe two sessions where I do a long ride and then go for a 2 hour run. I will have to force the nutrition in order to do well. It is sort of old school, but It can’t hurt to try in training. If nothing else it will be a HUGE BT workout.
I am also hoping for calmer weather this year at IMAZ.
Good question. I think the most succinct answer came from the enigmatic Paulo after my race:
“You need to train more and lose some serious weight.”
I am 5’9" and about 173 lb.s. That is too big to do well at Ironman, especially on a hilly course like Wisconsin, especially given my fitness level. If I had been just 10-15 pounds lighter I may have gotten 5-10 of those minutes back. My Ironman P.R. is Canada 1996 at 10:40 something and I was 155 pounds. Technically, I am overweight. I’m also 46 now, but we won’t talk about that… If Joe Bonness can do what he does…
Also, I needed to add much more running mileage. About three months before Ironman I had a knee probelm that did get cleared up but it hurt the amount of miles I could put in. I didn’t run for a month. Knee probelms are a big problem. If you have a broken elbow you can still run, but a knee injury usually = no running. The injury was really my fault for not being well prepared enough to start ramping the mileage up.
Basically, more longer runs (my longest run was only 19 miles and I only did two of those plus a couple 18 milers) and I didn’t really do any long bricks- which I believe in. I was OK on the bike but just OK, averaging 20 m.p.h. thereabouts. A week before the race I rode 115 miles flat out faster than I ever had by myself in my life at an average of well over 21 m.p.h. and felt like I hadn’t even ridden.
Bottom line: More training and lose weight.
I’ve never done the race but…
I am 5’9" and about 173 lb.s. That is too big to do well at Ironman
From the agegroup competitors I’ve seen so far in any IM, you are classified as “ANERECSIC” Seems like an average weight is like 250LBS
Congratulations on signing up.
Some of the rules that I follow based on the advice I have received here and elsewhere:
-
Get to the start line healthy. It is so discouraging to start a race with an injury problem that you know is going to significantly affect your race. You will probably do the most training of your life getting ready for an ironman and developing an injury during ironman training is very common.
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All other rules are secondary to rule #1 unless you are trying to win, qualify or podium, in which case you may have to gamble a little bit with respect to training thru an injury in order to achieve the desired level of fitness.
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Watch your run training carefully. Most injuries are caused by running. In particular, watch your intense run workouts and your long runs and your long bricks.
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Treat any running related injury very seriously. Get medical advice from a Dr., physio or chiro who works with athletes (not the family DR)
(if you think I’m stressing this injury thing too much, all I can say is that in each of the last three years when I have trained with a group of about 10 people for IMC most of us have developed leg issues that required some treatment and some adjustment to our training schedule. And each year a couple of guys/gals have either withdrawn before the race or raced with an injury that affected their performance significantly. Had they backed it off sooner when the injury arose, instead of being consumed by the need to get all their workouts in, they would have had a better experience).
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Get those long (6 hour ) rides in, after you have built up to that length. Its the best and safest way to build fitness.
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Get those long runs in, but you should limit those runs to about 2 hours. Running longer than that or running more than an hour after a long ride produces too high a risk of causing an injury in comparison to the extra training benefit you will get out of doing those longer run workouts. (this may be the most contoversial opinion in my list and I’m curious to see what response I get) My strength is running and I did do a couple of 2.5 hour runs this past year while training for my 4th IM, but I would not have if I was having any leg issues at all and I would not recommend it to most people doing an IM for the first time.
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practice your nutrition plan during your long runs and rides and especially during your Half IM if you are doing one during your pre IM training. Then expect the nutrition plan that worked during training and during a half IM to fail you during an IM. Everyone practices their nutrition plan and they still often have gut trouble at the big race. What has worked for me is to avoid all fats for the last 36 hours before the race and no solid food during the race, just sport drink, gels, water and cola (its not delicious, but I’m not there for the culinary experiene, I’m there to do what it takes to get to the finish line as fast as I can). But to each his own on this one, just remember that what worked in your training will often fail you during the race.
Good Luck. My first ironman year was one of the great years of my life. Enjoy yours.
Learn as much as you can. I would suggest going to Coachgordo.com and reading all of his articles in the tips section, plus “Going Long.” Other places to check out are the Don Fink book “Iron Fit” and the Huddle and Frey book on ironman training, plus this website, coachKP.com, and opentri.com. When it gets warm enough, get in a bunch of long rides and follow each long ride with a transition run.
For the first IM’r; which I just was in November; I think the best and most overlooked advice is what a couple posters already said. You MUST get some idea of how to handle the full 12/14/whatever hours it’s going to take you to do the race. If your longest training day is 9 hours, you DO NOT KNOW how your body is going to react to a 12 hour day. This is especially true in regards to nutrition. If you do a 9 hour training day and you have some slight stomach/nutrition issues - what do you think is going to happen when you go another 3-5 HOURS!
Second best piece of advice is to not push too hard on the bike. Train enough to know what you can really handle, and then stick to that fairly closely.
Finally, do enough training! Seems obvious, but it’s hard to convince yourself on a day to day, week to week basis. I was very happy that I stuck to my plan and had plenty of 100 mile bike rides, long bricks, long runs, etc. It was real tempting to skip some of them, but the IM distance must be respected and trained for if you want to do well.
Oh, and enjoy the whole experience. Get there early, talk to people, meet the pros, enjoy the spectator support… after all those months of training you want to make it as fun as possible.
Check out to see what drinks,gels,bars etc. are going to be on the course.
Train with what they supply, makes life easy when they provide the bulk of what you will need.
Also the week before the race for me I made sure all personal stuff was in order,(work, family,house,pets etc.)
Aggressive goal. I was sure I could easily do under 11h at IMFL and did 11:45, but I told people my prediction was 12h so I looked smart.
The big thing for me was avoiding burnout. After many months of hard training I had a few weeks/months before IMFL and IMLP where I did not want to bike. My bike mileage dropped like a rock. Being more consistent at a lower volume would have been better.
For Arizona I tried burning out in advance by not biking after placid until December. Now I am going full bore on a spin bike for 16 weeks(Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar).
My nutrition philosophy is don’t pack items on your bike that you would NOT eat if you felt nauseous. If I feel great I can eat most anything, but if I feel crappy I want “comfort” foods. It is more important to consume crap calories than ignore(not eat) scientifically-engineered nutrition. It seems like a simple concept, but read the race reports and you will find people who carry food items 112 miles. My bento box is always empty when I hit T2.