Ok I know this is going to sound a bit sit-comish but I am seriously not describing myself here. I have a friend who a few years back signed up for IMFL and to be brutally honest didnt take it seriously and thought it would be easy. He DNF’ed halfway on the bike and that was it for his day. At that time he had never done a tri. IMFL was to be his first. I kept telling him he needed to train and he just kinda laughed it off. Fast Forward a few years to 06. I was talking to him about how I was going to sign up for FL and well I guess that got the bug in him again and he decided he would do it too. Well we both got a spot. I am taking this race very very seriously. I have set up realistic time goals 12-13 hours. I am training daily. I have recently started to get coaching and I feel I really respect the distance and I will admit am still at times really scared of this race. My friend however is still lacking a bike. Hasnt really started swimming (does not have a swim background really either) and in general when I bring it up to him he just kinda blows it off and says hes going to start getting serious soon. So heres my dillema. This guy is a good friend. But hes a friend from college and we dont live anywhere near each other and mostly just talk over AIM. I will admit the competitive side of me wants to beat him but at the same time I want him to finish too. And its not anything like I will feel cheated of beating him if he DNF’s. I want him to finish b/c I know it would be good for him. SO what would you do? I’m just not sure. I keep trying to encourage him to workout more but I dont think hes going to. Should I avoid the topic altogether and just see him on race day? I just feel like hes setting himself up for another very expensive DNF and a miserable race day.
Encourage him to train, but… He’s been through it before, and he’s an adult. Ultimately it’s his decision how seriously he takes it.
Helping him in any way would be a serious infringment of the International Convention on Athletic Smackdowns.
Do everyone a favor and let him reduce the overcrowding and subsidise other racers…
Or (serious suggestion)…sign him up with TnT (or similar) so he has an additional reason to train
Edited for clarity
I might ask how he has changed his plan or his goal from his last experience. That is the easy way to get him to either realize he is in over his head, or to change his behaviour, or just accept that he is going to have one long and miserable day that will still result in DNF.
I think there are some people that like the idea of doing an Ironman, really like the idea of telling people they are preparing for one, but aren’t really into that “training thing”. For these people, there is nothing you can say or do to help them, because they are not committed to realizing their goal. Your friend may be one of these people. (Actually, since he had not done a triathlon prior to his trying an Ironman, I am almost certain your friend falls in this category. Don’t get bogged down by him. Certainly don’t let him get you to do something stupid, like go out drinking late into the evening the night before the race.)
Paul
Tell him how little you’ve been training, then ask him if he wants to “make it interesting”.
Steve
Article II. Section C, clearly states; though shall not provide aid or demonstrate good will up until, but not including the day of, an Ironman event, if the competitor is of the same sex, to whom you have been acquainted for more than 2 years, and against whom your time will be compared. Violations will result in banishment to trinewbies.com and the downgrading of any and all future smackdowns to “slap fights.”
or perhaps send him to LA where all the douchbags live
.
At this point in time, 4 months out from the race, his options are to strat training and hoped to muddle through with a 15+ hr finish, with a significant probability of DNFing still, or not train, and DNFing for sure much sooner in the race.
You helping him at this time will not significantly change the first option.
If he remains stupid, uh, I mean stubborn, please make sure that he lines up in the very back part of the swim so as to not interfere with those that put a more serious effort into the race prep.
what are you so touchy about?
Now here’s an idea. There’s a sucker born every minute and I believe the OP has found his.
~Matt
i’m sensing an intervention.
we have not yet one yet up here at the compound, but we could carve you out a price. i could guarantee a dozen fit, training triathletes when he arrives, who’d each take a turn at basically roasting this fellow, shaming him into the realization of the coming meltdown, absent serious and regular training. the capper would be the presentation by my next door neighbor, who holds the one ironman record that will never be broken, and who’d scare and sober the bejeezus out of your buddy with his own tale of woe. then we’d all train, your friend inclusive, for 2 or 3 days to get the ball rolling.
$5k ought to do it. just how good a friend is this guy?
what a shame serious athletes get shut out the race for people like him. I hope he gets motivated and has a good experience.
what a shame serious athletes get shut out the race for people like him. I hope he gets motivated and has a good experience.
Ok, I’ll open the door. “Serious” athletes have no more right to the race than this guy’s lazy friend. People may train harder for these event than others, but IM is more of a race for one’s credit card to sign up and not the race itself.
To the original poster: Don’t do anything for your friend. Let him train (or not train) at his leisure and DNF again. Perhaps then he will stop spending so much cash and put his money towards something he enjoys.
my next door neighbor, who holds the one ironman record that will never be broken
Oh DO tell…
“Oh DO tell…”
9 consecutive DNFs.
My neighbor and I are buddies and he decided that he wanted to embrace the endurance lifestyle, so he asks me a ton of questions about races, etc. He works out with weights a ton, has taken defense classes, and is a pretty well built guy. Anyway, I try to encourage him to do some sprints with me in order to get his feet wet in the sport. He goes out and buys a new bike. Now when the guy bought a treadmill for his basement he took me with him to help him pick it out. But he went out and bought the bike on his own. It was a Bianchi, but not a Bianchi road bike, more like a hybrid that you could use on trails and streets. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but hey, it was his choice and he still seemed committed to train.
He signs up for an Oly distance race that I told him I was going to do. But then he fails to train at all. I asked him if he wanted to ride, swim or run with me, and he was always busy. So I’m thinking, this is going to be interesting come race day.
We both drive out of town to do the race with our families in tow. He does OK on the swim, considering he did the side-stroke the entire length. He was BOP, but didn’t care because he really didn’t swim much anyway. He totally bonks on the bike, and I finish the race, cool off, and meet up with our wives at the finish line to watch my buddy come in. But his wife says he still hasn’t gotten off the bike yet. I tell her that he must have and she just missed him.
He finally gets off the bike looking horrible and heads off on the run. I’m thinking DNF, but the guy finishes and I praise him like he just won the race. I really wanted him to succeed so I’d have a racing buddy. His wife, however, is totally embarrassed in his performance. She gives him total shit. Well, we are loading our bikes on the truck to take back home and his water bottles are totally full. He says he hadn’t quite mastered the whole “drinking on the ride” trick yet. I just laughed amazed that he was able to finish. This guy hardly trained, and his place overall showed it. He was sore for a week.
Anyway, he doesn’t do another race all season and then next year says he wants to do the Oly race again. I’m cautious this time and tell him he is going to have to train more, and smarter than last time. Same darn thing happens again. No training. He finishes the race third from last. This is a 38 yr old guy, and he comes in third to last overall. Hasn’t done another race since then.
Looking back, I wish I would have pushed him more the second time around so that he could have been successful in the sport. I figured he would know better the second time around, but he didn’t. Ultimately, I think he wanted to wear the race t-shirt and join the lifestyle, but he really didn’t have a burning desire to do what it takes to succeed. Sitting on the sidelines and watching him fail, however, didn’t feel good then, and now I can’t even talk training or racing with him because this sport is no longer of interest to him.
I think for someone who is on the outside of the triathlon lifesytle looking in it is very easy to see the positive benefits of what we do and not see the work that we put in to get there. Mixed with a competitive emotion of I can do anything Joe my neighbor does, and the end result is poor performance in a race. It would be interesting to break down the DNF’s per race and get to the root cause of why they occurred…
9 DNF’s…that bogles the mind. Incredible…
I feel like any of my friends could start this post about me…
Just remind him of how he felt last time and if that does not motivate him, make sure he has your bike transition ticket so he can have your bike in the car when you finish.
9 DNF’s…that bogles the mind. Incredible…\
Not just 9 dnf’s, but 9 in a row…And not just anywhere, but the big daddy, Hawaii… Try and beat that one…
It would have been more, but I got so much peer pressure from my friends, that I promised to finally walk one in…Then I walked 3 more in, not sure why, but ended up with an 11 and 4 record in Hawaii… I did lead the race a few times, got gobs of coverage on WIde World of sports one year, and have some classic stories from those years. I actually ran 16 miles of the run once before the tortured hiking began, and that remainded my PR there of 9:45… Of the total time I’ve spent on that island(probably about 30 trips or so, totaling over a year I suppose) I only had 15 bad days in all that time, the rest was wonderfull…