I fancy a new long term goal. Anyone done a full Ironman? Just how tough was it?

Yep. Lanzarote 1994. Gonna do another one as soon as I recover!

I think Smee did seven in seven days once. Came top five in every one. But he's blocked 🙁

wrong -he won at taupo in 73.

i dont think we have met – friend of smees deadly darcy ?

Yup. Have the first one on DVD, watched it several times, and looking forward to seeing the sequel.

Oh…

A pal from work did the Austrian one last week. 13h56m – loved it.

Its the training, I think, that would bore me. Or destroy me. or both. OK I just can't be arsed.

deadlydarcy. who is this smee that you keep on talking about? did they upset you somehow?

friend of smees deadly darcy ?

I don't think he'd say that, no. But I miss him. Didn't realise he won at Taupo '73. I assume his time is still the course record though? 🙂

My mate at work is a nutter into this dazsharpetriathlon.blogspot.com/ i do tip my hat to him as he is truly
Focused and comitted to his goals, hes also very humble about his successes too and a bloody nice chap.

doing my 1st next year. not sure which yet. but i'm gonna be doing one for sure. just need to sort my swimming out! big ben tri (half ironman distance. offroad) in september. think that'll be my 1st tri.

doing a sprint tri in august, hopefully an olympic after that and then who knows…

No jimmyshands, he didn't. You might have known him by his more recent incarnation, Obi_Twa. I think it was his fifth. Tina Turner sang a song she always dedicated to him.

Entry prices are a hell of a steep though £300

[swift edit there…]

No. They are definitely around £300

Colleague of mine just did his fourth. Lanzarote this time.
The sheer amount of training time required just about rules it out for anyone who has just about any other interest outside of work from what I can tell.

Friend of friend wries this blog about his attempts to qualify for Hawaii.
http://tomandh.blogspot.com/

It'll take most people a YEAR to recover.

Get started at SLOWTWITCH

The Mrs normally do's one a year, best time of 12.40. You have to give your life to training and be selfish, I'm way too lazy which is just as well really

My mate finished the Lanza in 11 hours this year. Pretty good as he was just a regular bloke who got into mtb a couple of years ago (being the physio at Club La Santa may have been useful for him though).

Yes, but it was in 1985 and a million miles from the modern event.

Peterborough Silver Spoon Ironman.
No wet suits so you froze, a doctor actually checked us as we came out of the water. And we were given hot Ribena.
Strict TT rules applied, nothing was aero then just standard bikes.
The run was a well a run.
I can't recall my time, I know my cycle leg was third fastest.
Did me good because I got a 3rd in my next Tri, and a win in a Biathlon.

Did one in 2004 (before kids) takes 2-3 years to be able to handle the training IME
I did it in 12 hours dead and it took me > a month to get over it.

Loved living the life at the time, trained with Manchester Tri club with my Mrs.

Don't have the time now and don't miss running so I just race my bike instead that was until I herniated 2 lumbar discs 3 weeks ago, now I just lie on the floor

I trained for 4 months, following the BeIronFit intermediate training plan. It exhausted me totally. Up at five for 1.5 / 2 hour run / cycle, then hour + swimming at night. then long run and cycles on weekends.

what I found was by the time I got home, eaten, sorted kit for next day it was pushing 10 and I was still buzzing from exercising, normally got to sleep at 12, up at 5, do it all over again. I was miserable, tired and very snappy. My wife begged me to stop, and I did, about 3 months before Ironman UK, best thing I ever did!!!

A guy in our team did one about 2 years ago. Never the fittest guy (but not the slowest either) and suddenly announced he was going to try one. Not sure what time he got but it was pretty impressive time IIRC. He didn't seem to have any major issues after and continued his riding/running silly distances almost immediately.

I know an owner of a tri/running shop and a lifeguard that both do Ironmans.

The amount of training is just crazy – you either need the most understanding partner (or no partner) or have to be very selfish.

They do look like an amazing adventure though and massive respect to anyone that can complete one – never mind what time they get!

Only done an offroad Sprint tri which I loved but is about 1/100th of the distance of an Ironman – even then it was knackering!!

Sponging-Machine – Member

My mate finished the Lanza in 11 hours this year.

…and he is in our team for 24/12! I am going to feel like such a lump of sweaty lard in comparison. 😳

I'm (attempting to) do one on 8th August – the Outlaw in Nottingham.

I've been tempted but to be honest I'm finding the training for an Autumn Duathlon hard to fit in, so adding an extra discipline is just out of the question (for me).

I can't see a way of fitting it all in with a family and full time work and still giving enough time to them both to live up to what I want to be as a partner/father and an employee. This is despite getting up at 5 am a few mornings a week for an hour and a half ride. Adding in 3 swim sessions a week would just push things to far.

I would love to give it a go, but at the end of the day my wife and children are way more important.

I do envy people competeing nowadays there's just so much to do. I think there were less than twenty of us on that start line.
There were virtually no clubs, no websites or publications.
Lucozade was the pinnacle of sports nutrition followed by bananas.
Bikes only came in steel, unless you bought a fangled Alan or Vitus who used the new wonder material called aluminium.
Helmets were leather hairnet ones and Oakley just didn't exist it was Boots own brand or nothing, Ray-bans if you were minted.
Tri suits hadn't quite made it yet so you stripped off in front of the spectators, not that there was much to see after a swim in a cold lake.
Nikes had just come over the pond, but I think some climbers I knew bought mine in the states for me.
How we got together to race I don't know.

Definatly something on the to do list, got a half Ironman booked this year so I'll see how I get on with that. Re cost the branded events, Ironman Uk, Ironman ch, uk 70.3 etc are much more expensive than non branded events, I'm booked in for "one last Tri" in the new forest the same organisers (race new forest) do the "forestman" which is Ironman distance I think entry is circa £100.00 (i'd imagine it's simmilar for the outlaw?) However, if you only do one in my opinion you want it to be a branded event otherwise you haven't technically done an Ironman. For training the general concensus on a particular tri forum seams to be around 15 hours a week which isn't awful but having chatted to a few Ironmen so to speak they all echo that it takes over your life.

Iain

Yeah, the Outlaw was £185, which i think is about as reasonable as it gets for an Iron-distance triathlon. Still a lot of money though, i'm used to entering fell races for about £3.

However, if you only do one in my opinion you want it to be a branded event otherwise you haven't technically done an Ironman.

Hmm, i'm definitely going to be saying i've done an Ironman. Well, if i finish!

The training doesn't have to take over your life. Though if you are starting all three diciplines from scratch then perhaps yes.
But you're already riding, so your a third of the way there 😐
I can't however suggest a training regime, as I was already road racing and doing a 1/2 each month. The swim was totally new, luckilly my sister was a county swimmer so she helped me out there.
I still did a long bike ride every Sunday 100 miles each time and midweek every session was a combined session i.e run/swim/run or run/bike or swim bike. I also only swam outdoors, using the Serpentine in London mostly, would have been nice to have had wetsuits then, instead we used Vasaline.
The results were okay.
I know by talking to triathletes now that a wetsuit and tri bars would have saved me between ten and twenty minutes if they had been about then.

I think it depends on your lifestyle as to how well you will cope with the training, if the average person calculated how much time each week you spent watching the tv they would probably find all the time needed to train! I'm currently on holiday from uni and I do about 12-15 hours a week of training this takes up a lot of my time but when I'm at uni I manage about the same ammount (probably 10-12 hours) despite having to go to lectures in the day and study at evenings and weekends etc. The differance is at Uni I get up at 6.00 and the gym and pool is right next to campus so I can go for a swim and/or gym session go for a run at lunch and that's two hours done straight away that adds up to 14 hours if you keep it up for seven days. At home I tend to faff around on the internet (like now) and I do a lot more races which I find the best training but they take time to prepaire for, a 25 mile tt is only an hour ish of excercise but my club ones start at seven which means I leave the house at six and get home at nine so thats three hours wasted. So if you are generally an organised person used to training a fair ammount already then you will be find fitting it in on the other hand going to 15 hours per week from 0 will be very hard.

Iain

aye from nothing but the odd midweek ride/a weekend ride to full training is a shock.

But when training properly for the bike i average 10+ hours a week. so its just a change in what the sessions are for me. though starting swimming from scratch is odd. suddenly being the one who's really slow/rubbish!