Is one month enough time to train for a Half Ironman?
Asked by
caly420 (
546
)
March 31st, 2010
Long story short, I’ve always been an avid athlete competing in XC and swimming throughout high school. When I got to college I needed to find something else to keep me active/busy…and so I invested in a bike and fell in love with the sport.
Fast forward 2 years and several Olympic and sprint distances later and few half marathons thrown in, I signed up for a 70.3 (1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run) back in October and the race date is for May 1, 2010 (gave me a good 6.5 months of training).
However, due to a few knee issues training got put on the back burner for a while while I just focused on rehabilitating it, swimming lightly, light exercise.
I’ve been cleared by all doctors to jump right back into training full force :)
Best news I’ve had in a while, so I celebrated with a ~5 mile tempo run just to see how things felt. YIKES!!! It hasn’t been that hard for me to run that distance since freshman year of HS.
So I guess t this point, FINISHING is my first and foremost goal, but is even that doable? I haven’t been on the bike since Thanksgivingish and swimming is the only thing I have even a moderate base in.
SUMMARY:
*Avid athlete past 6–7yrs
*Knee injury put me out of commission for 5 months
*1 month to a half ironman feasible?
Any input/advice/motivation I will lurve you forever :)
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5 Answers
I would ask your doc this question. My opinion really shouldn’t matter here but knee injuries are nothing to take lightly and I would only trust your doc to answer this question for you!
My brother trained for exactly one month before his first ironman.He was in his thirties.He did finish and KSA in my opinion :)) I think you should go for it!
When he was coming in to finish my dad called out to him and asked if he stopped for lunch along the way!LOL!
Personally I think you should take this a bit slower. While you could probably have enough time to train for “finishing” the race, but sometimes you should not trust yourself – once in the race the other side of you would be pushing the limit – not very good for the long term.
Go for it but I do not think you have enough time to train. You can finish it for sure but you will need better and longer conditioning if you plan on placing.
I triathlon a bit myself. Never done a half ironman, though.
In a month, I’d expect you to easily ramp up to 1.2 mile swim in time for the race.
And I expect you could likely be ready to ride the bike 56 miles if you could get in the necessary practice miles.
But the run. Oh, the run. You can, of course, always walk portions of the run course… but that’s no fun. And in my experience, when trying to build up miles, the maximum distance per run you want to add is about a mile a week. If you’re barely at 5 now, you can just get to 9 by race day (assuming all your swim and bike workouts haven’t exhausted you).
So… let’s say you can run 9 miles by race day. You likely could push through and get to 13.1… in a half marathon.
But for a half ironman, the brick is gonna get you.
You’ve got a real, serious challenge ahead of you. I won’t say it’s impossible, but the next few weeks will likely require serious dedication, focus, and most critically, staying injury free. It’s the last part that worries me most for you. Push too hard and you might find yourself out of the game for months all over again.
My $0.02: I suggest waiting and signing up for a later race to allow yourself a more realistic training schedule.
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