Wife lays down a challange
Poll: Wife lays down a challange
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something that a friend is trying to get me into as well (although i am 21) I have suggested doing a few triathlons first as well as longer versions of each discipline for training and to give you an idea of the task ahead as well clicking the Just do it box as when these are done you have just got to go out and give it your all!
technically, to "complete" an ironman triathlon, you have to do it in under 18 hours to be classifeid as a finisher. Some courses are better than others in that they feature fewer hills etc. some tri courses suit different athletes, so pick the event that rests on your strenghts, eg. if you are not a committed cyclist, dont race in Switzerland!
things you will need to do;
join a tri club - use their coaches, they will identify where you are wasting energy through poor technique, especially in the pool.
enter some sprint events building your way up to olympic distance in the nextyear or two - this gets you used to transitions and helps condition your body
get a fast bike - people dont use tri/tt bikes because they look cool, you will need to identify every possible advantage from your equipment to support your physical exertion and this means aero position, light weight and fit for purpose.
training - loads of better qualified people than me can help here, there is a wealth of tri-training books out there. you will need to commit to a pretty arduous training schedule in the year or so preceding the event and also thoroughly examine your eating habits.
six years is plenty of time, if you focus on the training you could do it in 2012.
things you will need to do;
join a tri club - use their coaches, they will identify where you are wasting energy through poor technique, especially in the pool.
enter some sprint events building your way up to olympic distance in the nextyear or two - this gets you used to transitions and helps condition your body
get a fast bike - people dont use tri/tt bikes because they look cool, you will need to identify every possible advantage from your equipment to support your physical exertion and this means aero position, light weight and fit for purpose.
training - loads of better qualified people than me can help here, there is a wealth of tri-training books out there. you will need to commit to a pretty arduous training schedule in the year or so preceding the event and also thoroughly examine your eating habits.
six years is plenty of time, if you focus on the training you could do it in 2012.
lenandsons said:
OK so as you may or may not know from an earlier post, I have recently really got the cycle racing bug. Now my wife has issued a challenge that I compete in an Ironman before I hit 50 in 6 years time, so thoughts, comments, votes time
Assuming you're not a runner, your problem will be handling the impact of the running training. Cycling and swimming are great for getting the aerobic fitness up but offer little help with conditioning the body to the stresses and fatigue of running. So build up the running slowly.I ticked the top 3 boxes
ewenm said:
lenandsons said:
OK so as you may or may not know from an earlier post, I have recently really got the cycle racing bug. Now my wife has issued a challenge that I compete in an Ironman before I hit 50 in 6 years time, so thoughts, comments, votes time
Assuming you're not a runner, your problem will be handling the impact of the running training. Cycling and swimming are great for getting the aerobic fitness up but offer little help with conditioning the body to the stresses and fatigue of running. So build up the running slowly.I ticked the top 3 boxes
Are you sure you know what your agreeing to here.
Full Iron = 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike and a marathon (26.2 miles 42.195 km)
I believe you have to complete a qualifying event normally a half ironman in an acceptable time to even qualify to do an full Ironman.
The UK one as most has a cut off time 17 hrs
OK so lets say your a very good open water swimmer, can do a 1.5k open water swim in 18mins. 50mins for the full swim, lets round that up to 1hr to allow for an appropriate drop in pace to cover the distance then add another 15mins for the fact you know you've got another two events to go.
So if your a very good swimmer with years of training and open water experience, expect to do the Ironman swim in 1hr15min
It would takes a few years and about 6hrs training a week with a good coach to get this good at swimming. Ex competitive so you've a head start on the technique but miles at sea is proper miles, it's not exactly 100m freestyle in a 25m pool.
OK the bike, an average club TT on 100 miles is what below 6hrs ave 18mph add in the fact you just swam 2.4miles knock off 2mph and you've yet to run a marathon another 1 mph = 15mph and we are closer to 7hrs add another 12 miles and it's closer to 8hrs for roundness lets say 7h45mins
As above a few years probably more time on the bike than in the pool (8hrs a week) to hit that.
The run,
OK Marathon anyone who has a reasonable good long distance running back ground should be able to do a marathon in 4hr30mins add an hr for the fact you've just swam 2.4 miles and cycled 112 miles and we are at 5hrs30mins
Probably need to train a good 6hrs a week for that too.
Add 2x15mins for leisurely transitions & feeds add an additional 30mins worth of feeds/dumps etc out on the course and we are up to 15hrs & 30mins for an Ironman, this is would be if nothing went wrong and you were mentally and physical on song the whole way through.
In order to do this you've been training 20hrs a week for a number of years.
Good luck!
Edit I ticked the top 3, if this is your dying goal in life go for it. A bet with the wife (only if I don't mind loosing
or I know I'll win it)
Full Iron = 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike and a marathon (26.2 miles 42.195 km)
I believe you have to complete a qualifying event normally a half ironman in an acceptable time to even qualify to do an full Ironman.
The UK one as most has a cut off time 17 hrs
OK so lets say your a very good open water swimmer, can do a 1.5k open water swim in 18mins. 50mins for the full swim, lets round that up to 1hr to allow for an appropriate drop in pace to cover the distance then add another 15mins for the fact you know you've got another two events to go.
So if your a very good swimmer with years of training and open water experience, expect to do the Ironman swim in 1hr15min
It would takes a few years and about 6hrs training a week with a good coach to get this good at swimming. Ex competitive so you've a head start on the technique but miles at sea is proper miles, it's not exactly 100m freestyle in a 25m pool.
OK the bike, an average club TT on 100 miles is what below 6hrs ave 18mph add in the fact you just swam 2.4miles knock off 2mph and you've yet to run a marathon another 1 mph = 15mph and we are closer to 7hrs add another 12 miles and it's closer to 8hrs for roundness lets say 7h45mins
As above a few years probably more time on the bike than in the pool (8hrs a week) to hit that.
The run,
OK Marathon anyone who has a reasonable good long distance running back ground should be able to do a marathon in 4hr30mins add an hr for the fact you've just swam 2.4 miles and cycled 112 miles and we are at 5hrs30mins
Probably need to train a good 6hrs a week for that too.
Add 2x15mins for leisurely transitions & feeds add an additional 30mins worth of feeds/dumps etc out on the course and we are up to 15hrs & 30mins for an Ironman, this is would be if nothing went wrong and you were mentally and physical on song the whole way through.
In order to do this you've been training 20hrs a week for a number of years.
Good luck!
Edit I ticked the top 3, if this is your dying goal in life go for it. A bet with the wife (only if I don't mind loosing
or I know I'll win it) Edited by OneDs on Wednesday 26th January 15:55
fixedwheelnut said:
lenandsons said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Very good question, will have to ponder this 
sorry, good luck with it
At 39 it took me a year to prepare for my first one: finished in 15:38:24 on the strength of an average of 4 hours per week training and a very conservative 'make sure you get to the finish' race plan. Peak traning load was around 12 hours per week, but not for long.
Prior to that year I didn't own a bike, couldn't swim more than 100m and was managing an hour's circuit training a week but not much else. The race was in August and I didn't see a swimming pool before February.
Second one a year later with a bit more work was an hour quicker. Third one a year later again was stymied by a bout of pneumonia a couple of months before the race - and since then work has prevented me from getting enough training done to do anything other than steadily regress into being a complete slob; which is soul-destroying.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying MTFU.
Prior to that year I didn't own a bike, couldn't swim more than 100m and was managing an hour's circuit training a week but not much else. The race was in August and I didn't see a swimming pool before February.
Second one a year later with a bit more work was an hour quicker. Third one a year later again was stymied by a bout of pneumonia a couple of months before the race - and since then work has prevented me from getting enough training done to do anything other than steadily regress into being a complete slob; which is soul-destroying.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying MTFU.
lenandsons said:
OK so as you may or may not know from an earlier post, I have recently really got the cycle racing bug. Now my wife has issued a challenge that I compete in an Ironman before I hit 50 in 6 years time, so thoughts, comments, votes time
JFDI, I'm frustrated by not having much of a knee one side, I can swim and cycle all day but I can't run even 100M 
Go for it, I'd do it just so I could have the tat'
IroningMan said:
At 39 it took me a year to prepare for my first one: finished in 15:38:24 on the strength of an average of 4 hours per week training and a very conservative 'make sure you get to the finish' race plan. Peak traning load was around 12 hours per week, but not for long.
Prior to that year I didn't own a bike, couldn't swim more than 100m and was managing an hour's circuit training a week but not much else. The race was in August and I didn't see a swimming pool before February.
Second one a year later with a bit more work was an hour quicker. Third one a year later again was stymied by a bout of pneumonia a couple of months before the race - and since then work has prevented me from getting enough training done to do anything other than steadily regress into being a complete slob; which is soul-destroying.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying MTFU.
Well to answer the MTFU bit looks like it has been decided I will be targetting Ironman Canada in Vancouver in 2013. Looking to do a few sprint tri's this year along with my very full cycling calender which includes 6 century races in 3 3 countries!!! then next year up the distance to Olympic and build for the Ironman - life insurance now changed to Battersea Dogs home Prior to that year I didn't own a bike, couldn't swim more than 100m and was managing an hour's circuit training a week but not much else. The race was in August and I didn't see a swimming pool before February.
Second one a year later with a bit more work was an hour quicker. Third one a year later again was stymied by a bout of pneumonia a couple of months before the race - and since then work has prevented me from getting enough training done to do anything other than steadily regress into being a complete slob; which is soul-destroying.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying MTFU.
http://www.ironman.ca/course.php
Here we go guys and gals. Anybody in the GTA who wants to join me on this let me know
Here we go guys and gals. Anybody in the GTA who wants to join me on this let me know
lenandsons said:
Well to answer the MTFU bit looks like it has been decided I will be targetting Ironman Canada in Vancouver in 2013. Looking to do a few sprint tri's this year along with my very full cycling calender which includes 6 century races in 3 3 countries!!! then next year up the distance to Olympic and build for the Ironman - life insurance now changed to Battersea Dogs home
Fantastic! Don't let shorter distance racing distract you from IM training: but that's bags of time to prepare.IroningMan said:
Fantastic! Don't let shorter distance racing distract you from IM training: but that's bags of time to prepare.
As I have never done a triathalone of any shape or size, I believe the sprints will be a good intro and then next year get up to longer distances. Just trying to balance my road racing etc with a different sport is looking to be an interesting proposition indeedfluffnik said:
If cycling is your thing why not enter La Marmotte?
Looks like another one to add to the ever growing list incl London - Paris. And travel with a bike is not such an issue these days although some airlines do make it expensive, EG American $100/bike/leg so for my son and I to get to the first race this year has cost an additional $400 !!!!Gassing Station | Pedal Powered | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff