How hard is an ironman?

Badwater is not as hard as it used to be with the night start they do now. Also everyone pretty much has an RV right?

You want toughest event Hardrock 100 has to be on that list, also probably Barclay's. A DNF is way more likely for re average John in those then Badwater 135 or Kona.

mkng1 wrote:

Did my first IM in May. If you race it I cannot overstate how hard it is. I haven't done an ultra so I can't compare. If you just want to finish then, yes, it's not super hard. But how hard is almost any race if you're just finishing?

You end up needing to define racing.:) But this was the OP point. Finishing an ironman is a lot like finishing a marathon. Sure it is an accomplishment but are you really impressed by someone "running" a 4:30 hour marathon? Are you more impressed if that person does say a 15 hour ironman? There is something to be said for the prolonged effort, but it is at a very low intensity.

(quote)Did it with two friends who also didn't train and had absolutely no athletic background. They finished just fine.

Just because something is hard for you, that doesn't make it hard for someone else.[/quote]

Making up stuff on the internet is easy!

There seems to be a consensus that the bike is the hardest part. Is there any rule against unicycles? A unicycle, an umbrella and a tumbler of gin. Might make for a tricky transition, but I feel that this combination would carry over nicely into the marathon.

The long distance stuff (marathons, ultras, etc.) is a little insane, and not that great on your body or your personal life. I prefer the Olympic distance as it is a little more sane (you can actually train for it without being independently wealthy and can carry on a somewhat normal life), and does not seem to favor one discipline more than the other. Plus, if you look at some of the top tier guys, a lot of them are really good runners (some of the guys I used to go against were D1 All American in cross country). If you go all out, an Olympic distance event will leave you shot for a couple of days, similar to a marathon. I imagine an iron man would hurt more and would totally dominate your personal life to train for (there is a reason the term "triathlon widow" came into existence).

I am an idiott wrote:

(quote)Did it with two friends who also didn't train and had absolutely no athletic background. They finished just fine.

Just because something is hard for you, that doesn't make it hard for someone else.

Making up stuff on the internet is easy![/quote]

Disbelieving everything, including true stuff, on the Internet is easy.

yourafuchcer wrote:

I happen to free lance for IM corporate.

And you are posting it's the hardest thing evar. That's the PRECISE reason why thousands of people complete them every year. Yup. That's hard.

Depends, mostly, on the course.

Can settle this pretty easily. Post your race numbers, we'll look them up.

Must say, this is the funniest thing I've read all week. Pages of runners who have never done an Ironman telling everyone how easy it is.

Who needs comedians when you have the internet.

You realize that a marathon is part of an Ironman, right?

C0l0rado wrote:

You realize that a marathon is part of an Ironman, right?

And you do realize that the person you are replying to posted that on 7/29/2016 3:54PM - more than 3 years ago.

So the person no longer cares, moved on or probably is dead.

Yikes!

It absolutely is

I entered one in 2017. One swim prior to event and a few rides - nothing significant.

My swim was average, bike awful but finished with a 3:48 run.

Signed up for another 3 months later.

I’d have to agree the bike is the hardest section and having seen how regular swimming improved my swim time to a 1:03 in that few months now I’m riding far more regularly and hope that come September I’ll have a far more comfortable ride - but as I tell running friends - for me it’s just a fun day out in Lycra. If you’re gunning for sub 12 hrs then yes you need to put some work in. To make the cut off - yes if you’re an average to good runner with a good endurance engine used to ultras etc you’ll get to the end. It is still a very long day and running down the red carpet for the first time is an amazing feeling.

Nutrition is also key. You just have to eat/ drink continually which creates all sorts of issues - ?

... I reckon a 24 hour running event would be considerably harder!

Horse sized cucumber wrote:

You wouldn't make it to the end of the bike

guaranteed

Pretty Much wrote:

If you're a decent runner, you can pretty much walk out the door and do an Ironman any day of the year with no training.

NO, You would not make it to the beginning of the bike. The open-water swimming is no joke if you have not trained for it at all. It is not like in a pool where the water is flat, there are marked lanes, nobody swims you over and you can take a break every 50 meters or so...

It's hard to find a comparable comparison. Ironman is a different kind of event with a different kind of fatigue than anything purely running related. The time on one's feet and the pounding is what makes running longer distances challenging.

The skill set required and the fatigue developed during a 140.6 is, simply put, "different." I know several All American distance runners that easily BQed/have run competitive ultras. However, qualifying for Kona proved significantly more difficult for them -- not that BQing and Kona are on the same level. Even with a 14-cylinder running engine, triathlon requires decent swimming and bike technique. Said technique is generally only accomplished with A LOT of time in the pool and on the saddle.

A novice with very minimal training can walk an ultra. The same just can't be said about finishing a 140.6.

There does appear to be a lot of opinions here lol

doctorj wrote:

So the person no longer cares, moved on or probably is dead.

Yikes!

Dead, most likely. Ultra events are proven to damage your heart and CV system until you keel over. And then everyone says, "oh no, how did that happen."

Eek!

mid D guy wrote:

Horse sized cucumber wrote:

You wouldn't make it to the end of the bike

guaranteed

NO, You would not make it to the beginning of the bike. The open-water swimming is no joke if you have not trained for it at all. It is not like in a pool where the water is flat, there are marked lanes, nobody swims you over and you can take a break every 50 meters or so...

Not quite. I did an Ironman Santa Rosa a year and a half ago. This was my training leading up to the race.

14 swims, all in a pool, longest one was 1 mile. Most were of the 1/2 - 3/4 mile distance.

16 bike rides. Longest on was 57 miles, second longest was 35 miles, the rest were 15-30 miles in distance.

running most days, nothing spectacular. Longest run was only 17 miles. training only about 40 miles per week.

I finished the swim in 1:35, bike in 7:01 (had some serious achilles issues from lack of training. which then lead to a 5:11 marathon as I was forced to walk large portions of the marathon. So even though my run was crap and it was more than twice as slow as my marathon PR (which was ran when I was 30 and I am now over 50) I still completed an Ironman on very little training.