Admittedly, I have limited experience with Ironman (1x12 hour finisher), but at least for me, intense marathon training for PR/BQ was more taxing/stressful than Ironman training, but obviously Ironman training was much more time consuming.
http://www.triathlete.com/2017/08/training/harder-marathon-ironman-training_305202
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Marathon, you need speed and the risk of injury is ever present.
After reading the article and seeing how they framed the question, you could write a similar article on how training for a PR attempt 5k is harder than a marathon when quantified by training load per unit of time. Of course it is. That would be a meaningless finding, much like this article.
I didn’t read the article and I assume there are a lot of random “facts” in there but I hate to say it but they’re hard in different ways. The marathon is harder on the body for sure. Getting mileage up to run a fast marathon is very hard on the body and is way more painful to me. But there is more recovery time which is needed.
IM training is harder mentally. Longer hours and more sessions means I am literally always tired and training while tired. A lot easier to talk yourself out of an early swim or bike since you have another session in the day so you say you need to recover.
They’re both very hard but just different. But I’ve never been close to as sore after an IM as a few of the faster marathons I’ve run.
I’ve just had a read through the paper and I thought this part of the discussion was interesting:
For reference:
<AeT: below aerobic threshold
BAeT-AnT: between aerobic and anaerobic thresholds
>AnT: above anaerobic threshold
Both groups presented a significant association between more <AeT training and better performance. However, the opposite association was found with BAeT-AnT, so that the more you train “moderate,†the worse in IM or 42k. This agrees with previous studies conducted with age-group IM triathletes, recreational 10k runners and trained Cross Country runners. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify these associations in recreational trained marathon runners.
Interestingly, >AnT was associated to better performance in 42k but not in IM. According to the existing literature, we suspect that physiological intensity differences between these two events might explain this. In contrast with the opposite pattern shown between performance and “easy†(<AeT) or “moderate†(BAeT-AnT) zones time or load, “intense†>AnT zone seems to be linked to a better 42k performance, but not in IM. Again, the superior intensity which marathoners perform seems to explain why this association might be found. For instance, a 3 h marathoner (like those in our study) will average around 70% of VO2max during the race, which would be BAeT-AnT zone in our runners’ assessments. However, only during the swimming it might be reasonable to exert beyond AeT (and maybe at some particular moments on the bike) during an IM distance triathlon. Thus, this opens new insights for the general assumption of the benefits of “Polarized Training Distribution,†so that it might not be “always better†for all disciplines.
That’s enough evidence for me… easy sessions only next year!
For my n=1, training is equally taxing, but differently.
However, come race day, much harder for me to recover from the marathon. Triathlons I shoot for a paced, sustainable, PR-hopeful strategy. Marathons are an all-out PR quest all the time - the strain on the body is different. At least for me anyway.
The only people who actually take these articles seriously or care about them are the same people who buy the mdot dress shirts mentioned in another thread and take them to work.
This is an individual specific question. I think marathon training is harder because I don’t like running as much as I like cycling. I also think marathon training is harder because, in theory, it is all 1 discipline, which gets boring/mentally taxing and has a higher risk of injury.
Someone who loves running would have a different opinion.
If you are time crushed then the ironman is definitely harder. You can train for a good assault on a marathon for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours per day. That same type of assault on an ironman would require 4 to 6 hours a day. So time sensitive people it is easy.
If you are injury prone in running, then of course the marathon will be harder, it requires you to bump up against your limits there, In ironman training you only need to have your shuffle perfected, and even if you are running good it is 1 to 2 minutes per mile slower than a standalone marathon.
If it is just about energy, of course training 25 hours a week or so is going to be harder than 8 to 10 hours.
And lastly race recovery, the marathon I have found is harder to recover from, as it is the fast running in both events that gets you down. So since the fast running in ironman at the best of cases is a minute a mile slower, the damage is just a lot less. Gravity is the enemy here and swimming and cycling defy most of that…