After signing up to an event, many triathletes will want to know what constitutes a good IRONMAN time.
I many ways, I really dislike this question. Are you a 21 year old male with all the time in the world to train taking on a flat course like Copenhagen? Or are you a woman in your 60s taking on Lake Placid? These are two very different athletes at very different events.
Any IRONMAN finish is a good IRONMAN finish in my book, but there are some general benchmarks we can aim for.
A 12 hour finish will always be a good IRONMAN finish time, this is a benchmark that many athletes aim for. The majority of athletes can achieve this target without needing to make drastic sacrifices. Will it be hard? Absolutely, but you don’t need to get divorced or say goodbye to your social life to go sub 12.
Going under 11 hours is a very respectable achievement which requires a lot of dedication, while going sub 10 is an elite finish time.
The average finish time is anywhere between 11-14 hours across most events, although this is skewed by elites going around 8 hours. If you want a target to aim for, look at last year’s results. Look at the finish times in your age group, and find out what the mean average is.
The dangers of setting targets
If you’re reading this, I’d wager you’re preparing for your first full distance race. A mistake many athletes make is setting themselves a solid target for their first event.
There are three reasons for this.
The first is that it takes away from the achievement of finishing your event. If you define success as whether or not you go under 12 hours, you could come away with a finish time of 12:03:00 and feel heartbroken. Realistically, you should be overjoyed that you just swam 3.8KM, cycled 180KM and ran 42.2KM.
The second reason is that it can cause us to chase targets which are unachievable. If you decide you need to average 30KPH on the bike to go sub 12, you could find yourself averaging 30KPH for the first 90KM, then 26KPH in the last 90KM as you blow up from pushing too hard in the first half. If you think those last 90KM were tough, wait until you start the run…
The final reason is that you are taking an enormous leap into the unknown. Once you make it over roughly the 150KM mark on the bike, you’re entering new territory. Nothing in your training can prepare you for what follows. You are in for a world of hurt and discomfort like you have never experienced before. Even if you have completed dozens of marathons before, you have no idea what’s coming.
For most of us, the IRONMAN marathon is less of a race and more a war of attrition. Getting enough fuel in without feeling nauseous, fighting off cramps, silencing the voices in our head screaming for a walk break, and feeling all the mistakes you made on the bike come back to haunt you.
If your friend was training for their first half marathon and was adamant they were going to go sub 2 as they heard that was a good time, you would probably tell them to take the pressure off themselves and just enjoy it.
Training for a good IRONMAN time
If you have your heart set on a finish time, how can you prepare to set the course on fire?
Unfortunately, the simply answer is volume of training. Yes, there is a lot more nuance than this, but if you have the time to train for 15 hours a week, you will most likely be faster than someone training for 10 hours a week. There is still a LOT more to consider. Nutrition, pacing, swim technique, intensity distribution, strength training, bike position, the list goes on. But what sorts the 14 hour finisher from the 12 hour finisher will most likely be volume of training.
There is a lot you can do to make the most of the time available, but lots of consistent, easy training is the key to a good IRONMAN time. The key is to build it up in a sustainable fashion, reducing the risk of injury and burnout.
If you have a time goal, you need to train in a structured fashion. You can’t just do random workouts, doing whatever you feel like when you wake up. You need to build your preparation to a steady crescendo. Peaking at just the right time, with the right kind of sessions.
You can blag your way through a sprint. You can get away with mistakes in a 70.3 But you measure IRONMAN mistakes in hours, or a DNF.
If you don’t have all the time in the world to research sports science, or have invested too much so far to leave your training up to chance, check out my online triathlon coaching or IRONMAN training plans which start from only £26.
