Okay, I know I posted yesterday about a friend looking to do his first Xterra. I also have another friend, who upon hearing of my conversion to tri was somewhat inspired. He’s about ten years older then me, so about mid-forties, and confesses to “Always wanted to do an Ironman,…just once”. So he proceeds to ask me about my training, and I tell him what I am doing to train for Olympic distance races, and what I will be doing shortly for HIM. He asks me about training volume for IM…and I tell him that I don’t really know…that I have two close friends who do IM races, but are highly competitive, and one races the elite division often. He stated he is not looking to compete, but rather to complete an IM. He just wants to do one, and then he said “who knows?” maybe he’ll do some shorter races after…
Here’s the kicker, he’s a business owner who works some incredible hours…14 hours a day six days a week is not uncommon, and add to that, that he is married with 3 kids all under the age of ten. His fitness level is okay, he works out an hour a day during the week he says at the gym, half hour of cardio (Elliptical or treadmill) and then a half hour of nautilus stuff. He wonders if 2 hours a day during the week, and one four-five hour day on the weekend training would be enough to at least finish an IM??? I don’t know. Thought I might ask here.
His interest stems from watching the Kona IM in the mid eighties and always saying “I want to do that”. He says he knows he’ll probably never be really competitive, but would like to know if that amount of training would at least ensure that he finishes safely. Any thoughts?
Well, aside from not seeing the point in starting with Ironman with as much other commitments as your friend has:
To “finish” (ie staying under 17 hours) I think you need close to zero training:
swim 2 hours (hold on to buoys for some rest inbetween)
cycle 8 hours (should give you time for two 15 minute breaks to stretch and eat)
walk 7 hours …
But then, what´s the point? Why do this in a race? Why not take a tuesday off and go for it?
40 years
Business owner (transportcompany, 12 pers. staff, work 13h. a day)
2 kids (4 & 9)
No talent or significant history in one of the 3 sports…
I have finished IM Austria (13h45) and Roth (13h35) on a weekly basis of 8 hours, 3 months prior to the race. Finishing was the goal. Training hours were (except for the swimming) always between 5 and 9 AM. I will race IM only every two years because too demanding on fysics, relation, mental, blabla…
Your overall fitness level will be OK for the swim, bike and first 20 km of the run. After that… it is surviving…
You can do it, but do not worry when you have to skip a training…
I was in similar situation. Own my own business(working 58 hrs/wk) and have 2 kids. Did IM FL on about 11hrs/wk & finished just over 12 hrs. Was glad to be done with all the training because it took up my free time. Signed up for IM CDA to do it with a friend, but did not want to stress my family life again. Trained avg of 6-8hrs/wk and finished just over 13hrs. The training for CDA was minimal stress on me and my family and still enjoyed the race other than the cold water. I am a very avg age group triathlete and usually finish in the MOP. No real talent. Could never in my life run under a 7 min/mile and could not even think of breaking 1 hr in the 40K bike. Good luck to your friend.
he works out an hour a day during the week he says at the gym, half hour of cardio (Elliptical or treadmill) and then a half hour of nautilus stuff.
Looking at people in my healthclub this is MOSTLY a BS workout yielding little or NO value.
If you bike alone(non-pack) with no coasting, run at a consistent mid-to-high aerobic heartrate, and swim without “resting” ever 10 lengths you can really optimize your training. Beyond that you can save time by not wasting time. Many people use snooze, take long showers, stand around waiting for the coffee pot to percolate, etc.
Everything should feel like a transition.
For example this morning the alarm went off. Put in/on contacts, nipple tape(don’t leave home without it), chestrap, and watch. Put invisible fence collar on dogs and let them out Dress, swig some gatorade and start calling dogs back inside Start offering dogs bribes to come back inside. Warm-up HRM and put gum in my mouth Let dogs back in, treat them and head out.
Many people take 15 minutes to do what can be done in under 4, which is 1 1/2 miles of running lost needlessly.
After the run, I speed up my shower and dressing by 5-10 minutes vs. non-running days. I also don’t dink around with work prep stuff.
Overall my 55 minute run takes a net of only 30 minutes.
A bit long to your question, but if you friend is busy tell him before he allocates more time, use the time he has more efficiently.
Note: I did not actually answer your question. M35-39. I averaged 11 hours/week training going from slug(no SBR at all) to IM(sub-12) in 15 months. I was ready 6 months earlier, but IMFL fit my schedule nicely.
Yes, it’s doable. And I’ll second the “Thirteen Weeks to a 13-hour Ironman” (Gale Bernhardt) program as a good framework to work from. I had very little triathlon experience but rather a few years of marathon/ultramarathon behind me, so it wasn’t a very difficult transition, and managed to put together a very comfortable sub-12 hour IM(FL) basing my training around the key workouts found in that program. I wouldn’t go from nightly rounds on the eliptical straight into a 13-week countdown, but with 2-3 months of multisport build-up to the start of the 13-week program, it should be a fairly easy schedule to manage.
Well, aside from not seeing the point in starting with Ironman with as much other commitments as your friend has:
To “finish” (ie staying under 17 hours) I think you need close to zero training:
swim 2 hours (hold on to buoys for some rest inbetween)
cycle 8 hours (should give you time for two 15 minute breaks to stretch and eat)
walk 7 hours …
But then, what´s the point? Why do this in a race? Why not take a tuesday off and go for it?
Axel
I see people say this now and then about IM…how you could complete one without any training. That’s just B.S. You have to have some reasonably decent fitness to do any one of those three things. Some guy can’t just hop off a couch and swim 2.4 miles and follow that up with riding a bike for 7-8 hours and then walk for 7 after that. Let’s be realistic here.
Well, aside from not seeing the point in starting with Ironman with as much other commitments as your friend has:
To “finish” (ie staying under 17 hours) I think you need close to zero training:
swim 2 hours (hold on to buoys for some rest inbetween)
cycle 8 hours (should give you time for two 15 minute breaks to stretch and eat)
walk 7 hours …
An truly untrained person cannot possibly complete the above in the amount of time required. If you take someone that can now complete an IM in the 11-13 hours range and and if they were to completely stop training for two years, than I say yes, the above is realistic.
Personally, I have quite a bit of respect for the persons who show up on race day with minimal training. Just try to imagine the pain they have to go through for 15-16 or 17 hours… I would never want to do an Ironman untrained. Way too much uncontrolable pain. When trained, at least you control to a certain extent the amount of pain you go through. I cannot comprehend cycling 180km when your longest bike ride is 60 (I know someone that did just that). I do not understand the untrained Ironman athletes, I would never ever want to attempt one untrained, but I nevertheless respect them for the challenge (albeit much different than mine on race day) they undertake. I bet some of them have to dig deeper than most just to finish.
I’ve worked with a couple people in similar situations, 9-10 hours a week will get him to the finish in reasonable shape if he trains consistently for several months. One fellow I consulted with did it on about 8 hours average but he had good genetics on his side. The key is to be consistent on a daily and weekly basis rather than miss a week then hammer for three days.
A couple of years ago at Kona they had sponsorship-slots. A company called matola (some energy-bar…still around?) had a slot and no employe who was into triathlon… So someone of the matola-people volunteered to save the companys honour
He probably was reasonably fit, but had not done a triathlon and was riding a mountainbike… He did finish just under the cut-off, but was stiff kneed and in a deep, deep tunnel.
As I said, I don´t see the point in doing it, but it can be done.
Axel
Well, aside from not seeing the point in starting with Ironman with as much other commitments as your friend has:
To “finish” (ie staying under 17 hours) I think you need close to zero training:
swim 2 hours (hold on to buoys for some rest inbetween)
cycle 8 hours (should give you time for two 15 minute breaks to stretch and eat)
walk 7 hours …
But then, what´s the point? Why do this in a race? Why not take a tuesday off and go for it?
Axel
I see people say this now and then about IM…how you could complete one without any training. That’s just B.S. You have to have some reasonably decent fitness to do any one of those three things. Some guy can’t just hop off a couch and swim 2.4 miles and follow that up with riding a bike for 7-8 hours and then walk for 7 after that. Let’s be realistic here.
I am not really sure how some of these guys do it, but you know what they say if you want to get a job or something done, give it (the job or task) to a busy person!
Well, he’s always wanted to do one…I think he just wants to hear his name and the words “you are an Ironman”, I dunno. His business I guess. Just wanted to know if you guys thought it would even be safe to train at that small amount.
Linhardt…you are my kind of person…getting to the Ironman finish line is all about manufacturing time out of your day and treating everything like a transition…which is why 1 Ironman per year is more than enough for me…I can’t sustain that pace of life for any more than 3 months year…its mentally too taxing…and it works out well doing an Ironman mid summer, when there is no school for my son, lots of my customers go on vacation (especially those in Finland and Sweden that seem to have these insane 5 week long stints…), and at any point in the summer ~15-25% of the staff at work are on vacation…things slow down a bit, so it is easier to get the training in…no one is booking me into 7:30 am meetings!
As for the original questions…on 2 hours per day on weekendays and 5 hours once per weekend, this is more than enough time for someone to get ready for an Ironman.
2 hours a day during the week and a 5 hour day at the weekend is 15 hours. What’s the problem? Anyone could do an IM on 15 hours and should do better than “at least finish”.
It’s definitely enough time, but you might want to ask him where he plans to get the time from. It sounds like with his schedule the next time his family sees him will be when they run down the finishers chute with him.
I will let you know in about two weeks - I have previously done 2 IM, too many half IM to remember but I haven’t really done a tri in about two years. I during that time I still swam, biked, and run for training but due to moving and other commitments I never signed up for a race until last year. Anyway, I first started “training” for IM Lou at about 11 weeks ago (doing the 13 weeks to a 13 hour IM plan) and the last week and a half - my heaviest weeks - I had to bail on because of a bad respiratory infection with 102 fever. Basically short stuff during the week and long stuff on the weekends. My top week will only have been around 16 hours, longest swim 2.7 miles, longest bike 100 hilly miles, and an 18 mile hilly run. Of course my taper will be short but we will see how this goes…
I am not proud of this, I usually have a good 6 month ramp up with a much better base but unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way.
I would be surprised if half the people finishing an ironman are training 2 hours a day plus a regular 5 hour ride on Saturday. That is definitely enough time.
