"IMKen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:I need to know a lot more about your back ground. You did not give your
age, only that you have done 6 sprints over some period of time and train
10 -15 hours per week.
That does not help much. Your time is rather slow in all fields and
indicates that you would have a tough time completing IM in the allowed
time.
With all due respect Ken, while I agree with much of what you said, I have
to disagree strongly on the above point. My average time in all events - at
all distances - is substantially worse than what Brian outlined yet I
managed to finish my first IM in 14:05. Not blazing fast by anyone's
measure, but well under the allowed time. And I most certainly wasn't alone
or unique on the course.
Stubbornness; tolerance of pain; ability to carefully measure one's output;
desire - a lot of variables over and above raw speed - can and do all come
into play in an IM. Many of us aren't jackrabbits, but do pretty well when
the goal is to keep going for the long haul. As you said, only Brian can
know if he is one of us.
Brian, I'd say what you're suggesting is possible, but REALLY freakin' hard.
It'll take a ton of dedication and even more care. I tried it (doing an IM
my second season) and ended up hurt and sick. Ironically, I failed because
I started training too soon and tried to keep the training up too long. I
ended up lowering my sights to a half-IM that year and used the knowledge I
learned to successfully complete an IM in season three.
I know now that, yes, it would have been possible to do the IM in year two,
IF I had done EVERYTHING perfectly - and I was actually pretty close to it.
In hindsight, I can pin my failure down to a single training week, but one
or two naive training mistakes doomed me. It is damn hard to gauge
everything just right: when to start training; how much rest to build in;
how to listen to your body and distinguish simply being tired from
overtraining; how to not push too far too fast; how to deal with
disturbances to your training schedule; what to eat and when. It's a
balancing act that's extremely difficult to get right the first time -
alibet possible.
I'd be curious to know what percentage of first-time IM finishers had
notions of doing one a year earlier and had to re-evaluate before they ever
made it to race day. People like that (myself included) don't show up on
the DNF statistics, but I'll bet the number is high. As Ken said, you
didn't give us much about your background, but you may also find out that
some portion of your body just isn't cut out for it. [I know a guy who is a
damn good triathlete; he can go for days at high speed in the water or on
the bike. But, any run over about 15 miles, their knees just blow up].
Why not give yourself some time to find out? The most honest answer to your
question is yes, you can do it, but probably shouldn't.
John
Quoted message said:At 50, I was doing sprints in 1:08 to 1:11 in my first year of triathlon.
15 hours weekly training if done correctly can get one through an IM
Distance quite comfortably. I have done 7 and my lowest training week
average was 18 hours, my highest was near 30 hours .
Why not schedule an Oly distance soon and then move to Half. Learn for
yourself. I nor any other here can tell you how you will do. It's an
inner thing that only you know. One has to want to do an Ironman to do
it. It all depends on how badly you want it. Are you ready to focus and
commit the time, sweat and pain of hundreds of hours of heart pounding
training. If you were you would know the answer to your question.
Ken
