Any other triathletes out there?

jadaigle

I started doing triathlons in 2005 and have completed 6 of them. I''m doing another one on July 12 and Iron Girl on August 24. Are there any other Triathletes here?

jadaigle

I started doing triathlons in 2005 and have completed 6 of them. I''m doing another one on July 12 and Iron Girl on August 24. Are there any other Triathletes here?

ohthatbambi

I am a "wannabe". I was training for one (irongirl this Sunday near Atlanta), but injured my foot and can't run right now so my training came to an abrupt halt. Still having some heel pain so I have not done much running yet.

Jewlz

I am training to be one. my dad and I are going to do one next summer. I have a long ways to go. what is an irongirl? sounds fun.

bellmom627

I'm working toward this! Hoping I can get some help tooooo! :laugh:

I was a swimmer in high school and that leg feels best. I've been swimming three days a week, running two, cycling one and resting one. Hope this is sensible....

Thanks so much for posting. I'm desperate for info!
:ohwell:

frankp

what is an irongirl? sounds fun.

lol, not sure anyone would call it fun. Grueling, inspiring, incredible, but probably not fun.

The original ironman encompasses three endurance events run back to back to back (no rest); a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim in Kailua-Kona Bay, a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride across the Hawaiian lava desert to Hawi and back, and a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island (from Keauhou to Keahole Point to Kailua-Kona); finishing on Ali'i Drive. And it's sunny and hot hot hot; and often really windy making the bike ride much much harder than you'd think (as though you'd think a 112 mile bike ride is easy). Finishing in 12 hours is good for a world class athelete. Limping in at a snails pace trying to beat the 24 hour finishing cut-off is not unusual even for really strong atheletes.

People will train all year long, squeezing in maybe 2 hours a day on their workdays and Saturdays(running, biking and swiming) and around 8 hours on Sundays to get in their weekly 100 mile bike ride. At least that's the routine that some friends of mine do. Truly an obsession as this is the primary focus of their year (or years).

Imo, this is really taking a healthy activity (excercise) to such an extreme that it becomes unhealthy.

In addition to the orginal Hawaiin marathon there are now qualifying ironmans elsewhere with the same distances. You have to finish somewhere around the top 3% to qualify for the Hawaii ironman.

And to the OP, I've done a triathalon, not anywhere near an ironman though. I've gone to Hawaii to watch my friends do the ironman though, does that count? :laugh:

jadaigle

Yes, the Ironman is the endurance sport of endurance sports. Irongirl is very different. Check out their website: www.irongirl.com. There are 10 Irongirl event across the country, not all of them are triathlons. The one I'm doing is in Columbia, MD, very close to where I live. I raced in the original Irongirl triathlon 2 years ago and what I liked about it was the support they gave to beginners.

Triathlons come in many shapes and sizes so there really is a triathlon out there to suit everybody's level. Irongirl Columbia is a sprint: .6 mile swim, 17.5 mile bike, and 3.4 mile run. The olympic distance is generally a .9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 10K (6.2 mile) run. I've done sprints, olympics and a half-Ironman (my picture is me starting the run on my half-Ironman) and I've had fun at all of them.

Good luck to those of you training and setting a triathlon as a goal. Sure you'll lose weight, but it's more about knowing what you can do. When I started, I couldn't freestyle my way one length of the pool; now I can swim 40 minutes without stopping.