Saw this on the Cannondale site.
“The average Triathlete swims 5 miles, bikes 170 miles and runs 65 miles per week, every week in order to compete head to head with 2000 other athletes. Their goal, to get a chance to race in the grand daddy of all events, the Ironman World Championships in Kona Hawaii.”
Looks like I need to start running more…
No kidding!!! I was less than half of that for the running part. The other parts were about right.
jaretj
I thought that said every month…that’s about right for me…monthly!
Yeah, all those distances are a little more than twice what I did in my biggest weeks for an Iron distance. Then again, I didn’t break 12 hours! I’m sure I would have broken 12 on this course if I had experience, I just took it easy so I wouldn’t blow up on the run. Plus, I had a visit to the medical tent after the swim to get patched up. Those volumes are big, and appropriate for those that are really dedicated and fast. I guess that’s about what it takes for most people to be able to race that distance, instead of just survive it. That would take me at least 3 hours of swimming, about 12 hours of biking, and at least 7 hours of running. 22+ hours a week sounds about right for the average well prepared IM’er. Although, there are 10:XX IM’ers that do it on less than half that amount of time…david on this board is one that immediately comes to mind…he’s 44…so, it can be done.
I can’t help but think that kind of volume consistently over time(particularly the run volume) would completely shred your legs.
On the other hand, if they’re saying that’s what Kona qualifiers do regularly, I guess it’s about right, because they are the sickest of the sick.
I think that before IMLP I was doing around 9000-10500 yards swim, ~150 miles bike, and never more than about 35-40 miles running(which, in my current state, sounds entirely implausible). I did just under 12 hours, with a sub-4 hour marathon.