What Race Are You Training For?

I probably haven't read this blog in about 4 months, quite frankly because I was getting bored of it, but I happened across that particular post today and was completely stupefied.

Now, it's entirely possible that I missed the point, and that maybe he is suggesting what one should be doing at this time of year for an Ironman next fall, but this level of training would be nearly impossible to even finish an Ironman, let alone do well at it.

I understand people have obligations that limit their training time, and I'm fortunate that I have no family of my own to take away from my time, but to do an hour a day during the week and a "big day" of about 4 hours on a Saturday just doesn't seem enough. I'm already freaking out that the 20+ hours a week that I'll get up to shortly aren't enough to do well at the distance.

It's really not important that you read the entire blog post, as it was quite long, but the main points were basically swim on MWF for an hour, and maybe 4 runs per week, nothing particularly long, and a quasi-long ride on Saturday.

He also says in one sentence that swimming isn't all that important because it's the shortest part of the race and has the least gains to be made, yet has the athlete do it a disproportionate amount compared to the other disciplines.

It's like when I go up to TriSpeed for Saturday rides. It's chill for the first 7 miles, and then all of a sudden becomes a hammerfest until the church on Dover at mile 13. Then everyone stops and regroups, and decides how long they're going for. Most of them turn around, while some carry on for about 40 miles. Occasionally they'll do 50. I guess if you're doing sprints/Olympics as your main training that could be enough, but I'm surprised that there wouldn't be more people going longer.

I personally won't feel comfortable doing the Ironman next year without having many, many 75+ rides under my belt, and a number of 100+ rides. Additionally, I'll want to see a bunch of 20+ mile runs and probably a few 80/10 bricks.

I'm sure one day my situation may change and I have a limited amount of time to train. I just won't kid myself and try to do Ironman events in that time.