I am going to race Ironman Lake Placid this summer. I have never done a triathalon before and no I am not trolling. Does anyone have any advice for what I can do to prepare and what kind of times I can expect? For reference, I am a very active person, and I run distance for my highschool. I’m male, 5’9 and 120-125lbs/55-56kg. Any advice is appreciated because I really don’t know what I’m getting myself into.
Edit 1: I did a half marathon in about 1:19 and I usually bike around 20 miles a day, so I have a little endurance already
Edit 2: I turn 18 only like 2 days before race day so I’m just barely able to do it
Edit 3: I did an ftp ramp test on zwift and got 285w. This would put my ftp at about 5.2 watts/kg (Assuming it is accurate) but I’m not really sure what this means or whether this is good or not so hopefully some of you have some advice for me.
Edit 4: There are probably going to be a lot of edits by the time I race, but honestly, if you are going to comment and tell me not to race lake placid, you might as well give me some advice instead because I’m definitely going to. I’m also planning for it to be my senior project
Edit 5: I’ll try and respond to all of the posts/questions you guys have
Train long but not hard. You should be in better shape than grandpas. But IM is not a sport for teens. Should you be working on the 3rd base at this point of your life? I was….
If you can run that fast in 13.1 you’ll be fine if you concentrate on building up a big base of volume. Ease into the miles. Try not to worry about speed, it will only hinder your progress. Take a lighter week every few weeks. If you trained seriously, you could break 12 hours easy. Biggest thing is gaining experience. With nutrition, pain, and negative thoughts. I had that kind of mental toughness at your age. But I didn’t stop growing until my senior year. I couldn’t run in college due to shin splints. So, some may argue that it’s not right to put your growing body through that at such an early age. So once again. Take it easy. Easy and repeatable. If you can finish it, you’ll learn a ton and be much faster your second time around.
Btw. My aunt’s first and only tri was a full. On a borrowed ill fitting bike, with no more than 30 miles logged a week. She could barely swim but she had tons of marathon training. Top of her age group in every marathon completed. She finished her flat 140.6 in just over 13 hours. Placid is not flat. Take that for what it’s worth. Any type of high volume endurance training will help significantly. She wont sign up for another tri though. Haha
So, you didn’t mention anything about swimming. Are you swimming yet? If not, get on that immediately.
Bike as much as you can and build up the speed as a secondary focus. I would also suggest doing lots of hills if you can. If you don’t live in a hilly area do repeats.
Good luck. Also, don’t be dumb and injure yourself. Listen to your body and go easy.
My daughter’s plan is to race from sprints in middle school to Olympic in high school then 70.3 the year she graduates, then a full sometime in college.
I agree there’s no rush… unless you’ve already signed up.
Then just focus on getting lots and lots of easy miles in. Don’t worry about the pace being fast enough. Let it feel as easy as possible because the duration will be what makes it hard. You’ll be fine if you follow one of the many online plans.
Just make sure you’re always going at a pace where you keep telling yourself, “I should be going faster”. You will likely pass hundreds of people in the last half of your race who didn’t hold back when they felt like they should speed up.
In all seriousness, for your long-term athletic development:
Don’t.
Race short. Build speed. Save IM for at least 5 years down the road.
Take it seriously.
You can do some serious damage to your long term performance future if you enter into this now. Your aerobic engine has yet to fully develop, your hormones are still coming into balance, and there is a whole OCEAN of things you don’t even know that you don’t know with this sport. This can be really dangerous for you. Skip the cuteness of your oops I signed up and save the bravado for some top end short course work and become a powerhouse in the sport. IM will be around until the end of time, there’s no rush.
You are not going to break 10hrs, put that out of your mind. If you somehow managed, it’d indicate you’re the second coming of Mark Allen. Just enjoy the training and the event as much as possible, people have done much dumber things when they were 19, you’ll survive.
The desire to go sub-10, on your first IM, and at LP…what about your nutrition plan?!
Heck, I’ll be there, let me know your name and if you go sub-10, I’ll be the first to buy you a soda of your choosing - since a beer is out of question!
My name is just the same as my username, and it would be super cool to see you there. I didn’t mention this before, but my neighbor has done lake placid 16 times, and he has a lot of experience, so he can help guide my through the preparation hopefully. I’m planning to use the nutrition provided at lake placid during my training leading up to the race.
IM is almost as much mental as it is physical. Remember that after swimming 3.8k and biking 180k (112 miles) all you have to do is a marathon.
Nothing against trying I have seen an eighteen year old go for it and do it.
Just get used to walking.
Good luck.
In all seriousness, for your long-term athletic development:
Don’t.
Race short. Build speed. Save IM for at least 5 years down the road.
100% agree, & it’s not too late just because you signed up. It’s far enough out to utilize their refund policy. Would try a 70.3 first but even that seems like a lot. Sprint racing and working on your speed is the way to go if you’re serious about triathlon. No reason to run a 1:19 half either. Think about your long term development and goals. Do you want to suffer through an Ironman or do you want to debut in 9 hours in your late 20s? Same deal with a half. Develop the speed to break 70 rather than finishing the distance.
If it’s not negotiable, then think about your weaknesses. Did you grow up swimming? If not, you need to get in the pool 4-5 times/week, getting in 3k-4k at a time. You’ll need to build the bike up to 4-5 hours. The running shows the potential for something like a 3:20-3:30 marathon. Running in an Ironman is different. That probably sounds slow to you but it won’t when you get to it on race day. The Ironman is about stacking up sessions & overall training volume. Racing the distance is about being patient. Being a couple percent too quick on the swim or bike will have you walking the marathon. The best way to handle the distance is to be conservative & have a good fueling plan. Wouldn’t recommend it tho.