Ironman. Why?

Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Bein’ born.

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is a triathlon that consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile marathon, completed in consecutive order and that can take anywhere from 7.5 hours to 17 hours to complete. (Any longer than 17 hours and you will not be recognized as finishing that race.)

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is one of the hardest tests of physical endurance one can do. There are individual races and competitions that are harder, but very few events tie together 3 separate, unique events into 1 very long day.

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is an addiction and compulsion to many who participate. I have personally watched a lot of people get into the sport as their marriage was falling apart or watch their marriage fall apart as a result of it.

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is a 6 month (or longer) journey that usually consists of 12-20 hours per week of training.

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is a parasite that worms its way into your brain and gradually begins to clear out any priorities beyond itself. A snake eating its own tail.

That sounds terrible. Why do it?

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is one of the most satisfying and gratifying athletic achievements you can ever attain.

Triathlon swim – welcome to the washing machine.

To answer the question of why anyone willingly signs up for this thing, it’s important to define what an Ironman is not. All triathlons are not Ironmans, all Ironmans are triathlons. An Ironman is just one of the four common distances of triathlon.

Triathlon Defined

Sprint Triathlon -750m swim, 12.4 mile ride, 3.1 mile run – 1-1.25 hours is a very good time range.

Olympic Triathlon – 1000m swim, 24.8 mile bike, 6.2 mile run – 2-2.5 hours is a very good time range.

Half Ironman – 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run; 4.5-5.5 hours is the very good time range.

Ironman – 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run; 10-11.5 hours is the very good time range.

One poor man’s method of setting goal times in an Olympic race.

Triathlon Training

Each one of these distances requires a very different set of skills and time requirement for training. Sprint & Olympic triathlons are more about red lining throughout each discipline and place more emphasis on your ability to transition between each of the three disciplines. Put differently – you are rewarded for being able to change shoes VERY quickly.

Half Ironman and Ironman on the other hand are more about pacing. We look for the ‘forever pace’ – if I fed and watered you the right amount, what is the pace which you could hold for 6, 9, 12, 15 hours?

Top-end speed is much less important in an Ironman or Half; forever pace is much less important in a Sprint or Olympic. But all triathlon training has one thing in common – you need to actually do it.

Ironman Oceanside 70.3. That’s what pure joy looks like, allegedly.

Health & Fitness. 2 words.

It has been 9 months since I turned 50. In those 9 months:

I have been to urgent care 3x, which is 2x more than my whole life up to that point.
I have started 2 “forever” medications.
I have had 7 doctor visits.
I have been through 2 medical procedures.

I don’t particularly like any of this health stuff. This feels like the stuff of getting old.

They say age is just a number, I say that’s nonsense. Sure it’s a number, but also it’s a feeling. I do feel my age.

I feel it when I wake up in the morning and it takes longer for the machine to get up to speed. It just takes longer and involves a more complicated routine just to get to even each day.

So while I don’t agree that age is just a number, I do agree that how you respond to aging is entirely dependent on your attitude, it is a huge part of my WHY for training and racing these crazy things.

Let’s look at a different list from the last 9 months:

Trained for and raced Ironman Oceanside 70.3. Got crashed into coming out of transition; rode 56 miles and ran 13.1 looking like this.
Moment Bicycles convinced Cervelo to replace my bike, basically free of charge.
Incorporated yoga into my weekly routine, every Monday morning and Wednesday night., a key component of my recovery from that accident as well as my overall fitness.

You’d think an open elbow wouldn’t matter on a 56 mile bike. You’d be wrong. It mattered a lot.

So why do all of it?

My brothers are idiots and I can call them idiots but you cannot call my brothers idiots because they are not your brothers. And triathlon is like that for me.

For 25 years now I have been running, biking and swimming and it’s just part of me. Some of my favorite memories are around epic workouts and training camps. The races – regardless of outcome, all of it.

Ironman training can consume 20 hours per week, truly becoming a part-time job. Having done 4 of them, it is not something I can conceive of at this point in my life. But a half Ironman? That’s the sweet spot. Training for a half Ironman looks something like this:

Swim – 2x per week, Bike – 3x per week (twice on Zwift, once outside), Run – 3x per week and for me it’s important to include Strength – 2x per week, Yoga – 1-2x per week, even if it means cutting a swim. That’s 10-12 workouts per week, meaning roughly 15 hours.

It’s a lot, but it’s manageable. The key is learning to love the training journey itself, not just mindlessly moving towards a race that is out of your control anyway – try getting crashed into coming out of T1, literally .1 miles into a 56 mile bike race. Does that mean my 6 months of hard training was a waste?

Absolutely not. If anything, making the decision to finish the race despite a broken elbow and bike relieved me of any time pressure that day. I truly just went out and had fun. Maybe the best race I have had in years.

Actual finish time: 6:24. 30 minutes of bike & elbow triage. One of my favorite races in years.

So what happens next year?

First, I am not done recovering. It’s pretty crazy how a fall at 8 mph can do so much damage, but it did – to my elbow and shoulder in particular. So first, I recover.

Short-term 2026 is about two goals – first is qualifying for the USA Triathlon National Championships. In 2023 I won my Age Group at the Mission Viejo Triathlon and qualified for the USAT Nationals in Milwaukee. I ended up competing in 3 races – an open water swim on Friday, Olympic Distance on Saturday and Sprint Distance on Sunday. It was a blast and there is a boost from competing at that level. It ceases being about winning my AG or really finishing in the Top 10 and becomes more about racing as fast as possible against the highest competition domestically.

The second 2026 goal is to get back out on a Half Ironman, maybe Oceanside, but most likely a race later in the year like Santa Cruz.

What about long-term?

My super secret, no longer so secret goal is to win my Age Group in a Half Ironman someday, even if that Age Group is 70-75. In order to do that, I view each year I keep competing as another year closer to that goal. Even if it happens in 2046, that’s my goal and I will get there. Because when I get there I am going to be in damn good shape for a 70 year old.