Desiree Ficker retires from triathlons to focus on running

Triathlons get LV, running gets Desiree.

Did running get the better deal? ;-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gonzotravel/5181525534/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Absolutely

http://www.ichlaufe.org/Images/Small/496x300/ficker_mario-cantu-desireeficker.com.jpg

From the article:

'That race and a growing disenchantment with the hard training for the triathlon (and the toll it has taken on her) has led to this decision to quit the triathlon.'

If she is tired of the hard training I wonder just how far she will get in the marathon.

wait and see wrote:

From the article:

'That race and a growing disenchantment with the hard training for the triathlon (and the toll it has taken on her) has led to this decision to quit the triathlon.'

If she is tired of the hard training I wonder just how far she will get in the marathon.

Triathlon = marathon + biking + swimming?

I guess it depends how one interprets that. That could mean she is tired of the long hours triathlon training entails and just wants to focus on running. I think she ran track and CC in college. According to her bio, Ficker ran track/CC since age nine.

Maybe she enjoys running more than the other 2?

number king wrote:

wait and see wrote:

From the article:

'That race and a growing disenchantment with the hard training for the triathlon (and the toll it has taken on her) has led to this decision to quit the triathlon.'

If she is tired of the hard training I wonder just how far she will get in the marathon.

Triathlon = marathon + biking + swimming?

Thank You Mr Obvious.

Do you think she can just stop training for the biking and swimming and spend the same amount of time on running as she does now? To be a top marathoner she will have to step up her running game big time. It will require hard training.

Triathlon easily eats up twice as much training time as running at ANY level.

Triathlon training is tiring but doesn't feel nearly as hard on the body as marathon training. When I did IM triathlons a decade ago as an amateur, I ran 40-50 mpw, rode 250-350 mpw, and swam 12,000ypw. That would be a consistent mileage for a 10-20 week IM training block. It was crazy--but it's what many pros do (and some more than that). I was tired all the time--but nothing really hurt because I used a lot of different muscles rather than the same ones over and over.

When I ran 100mpw for 3 years, I felt like ass all the time.

But... wrote:

Triathlon training is tiring but doesn't feel nearly as hard on the body as marathon training. When I did IM triathlons a decade ago as an amateur, I ran 40-50 mpw, rode 250-350 mpw, and swam 12,000ypw. That would be a consistent mileage for a 10-20 week IM training block. It was crazy--but it's what many pros do (and some more than that). I was tired all the time--but nothing really hurt because I used a lot of different muscles rather than the same ones over and over.

When I ran 100mpw for 3 years, I felt like ass all the time.

That's 30+ hours a week. As an amateur?? No wonder triathlon is an elitest sport, you've got to be independently wealthy and not work to do that kind of schedule.

Pants on fire wrote:

That's 30+ hours a week. As an amateur?? No wonder triathlon is an elitest sport, you've got to be independently wealthy and not work to do that kind of schedule.

I had a teammate in college who trained 8 hours a day for the triathlon, but "only" 5 hours per when his school workload got to be too much. He was somewhere in the amateur/semi-pro bracket, and he seemed to think that was a perfectly normal amount of training.

Dan

Pants on fire wrote:

But... wrote:

Triathlon training is tiring but doesn't feel nearly as hard on the body as marathon training. When I did IM triathlons a decade ago as an amateur, I ran 40-50 mpw, rode 250-350 mpw, and swam 12,000ypw. That would be a consistent mileage for a 10-20 week IM training block. It was crazy--but it's what many pros do (and some more than that). I was tired all the time--but nothing really hurt because I used a lot of different muscles rather than the same ones over and over.

When I ran 100mpw for 3 years, I felt like ass all the time.

That's 30+ hours a week. As an amateur?? No wonder triathlon is an elitest sport, you've got to be independently wealthy and not work to do that kind of schedule.

If it takes you 30+ hours/week to do those workouts, you are a slow mfer.

wait and see wrote:

Thank You Mr Obvious.

Do you think she can just stop training for the biking and swimming and spend the same amount of time on running as she does now? To be a top marathoner she will have to step up her running game big time. It will require hard training.

I don't think you have any idea what the training of top Ironman athletes looks like. Many of these guys and gals are training upwards of 35 hours a week, not counting stretching, recovery, food, etc. Nobody on the planet runs that much, nobody. Can't.

Serious marathon training is more intensity focused than Ironman, but the sheer volume of work is considerably less.

In general I'd say training time was about 4-5 hours on the run, 12-15 on the bike, and 3-4 in the water. That's just a bit over 20 hrs of actual training time.

I had a full-time job at the time, but I was a terrible husband and an absent father because I was so absorbed in the training and racing. The sport lends itself to total self-absorption--or people who are self-absorbed gravitate to it.

I felt like ass running so much, but I only trained 12-15 hours per week.

Slow? Yes, for the amount of time I put into it, I was slow. I broke 10:00 a number of times and qualified for Hawaii, and that was as fast as I could go.

Ouch, yes, that's pathetic given the effort. Good on you for realizing it and moving on!

whadat? wrote:

Pants on fire wrote:

That's 30+ hours a week. As an amateur?? No wonder triathlon is an elitest sport, you've got to be independently wealthy and not work to do that kind of schedule.

If it takes you 30+ hours/week to do those workouts, you are a slow mfer.

Swimming 12K: 3km /hr average give you 4 hours

Bike 350mi: 18-19hrs assuming a 18-19mph avg

Run 50mi: 6.5hrs avg 7:30s

That's 29.5hrs and not a slow mfer if the above are your training averages.

Pants on fire wrote:

whadat? wrote:

If it takes you 30+ hours/week to do those workouts, you are a slow mfer.

Swimming 12K: 3km /hr average give you 4 hours

Bike 350mi: 18-19hrs assuming a 18-19mph avg

Run 50mi: 6.5hrs avg 7:30s

That's 29.5hrs and not a slow mfer if the above are your training averages.

Well...those were not his training averages. 30+ hours = slow mfer.

Bike 350mi: 18-19hrs assuming a 18-19mph avg

That's a pretty slow biking speed if you live somewhere flatish. More importantly, he said 250-350... so he's doing the 350 week rarely. That's still a huge range for bike mileage.