A few weeks ago Mark Allen and I decided to start our training forum. So far people really love it. Unlike most other forums, there is no junk. It is mostly questions and answers by Mark and I. Every post is subject to our scrutiny and if we do not like it then we do not post it. We also edit posts so that they are useful to people or easily found by others looking for information on the subject matter. We waited a long time to have a forum because we did not like how other forums worked.
The internet has really revolutionized our world hasn’t it? It is truly the information age. Now days you can find answers to just about anything on the internet. The problem is how do we know who wrote the answers. Slowtwitch which has to be just about the most popular triathlon forum on the internet. It has some good stuff but also has a lot of junk. It is up to the reader to be able to tell the difference and it is not easy let me tell you. Some of the people in there are really good at using the medium. Anonymity is a wonderful thing for many people. Anyone can say whatever they want and there is no repercussion.
Over the years that I have been riding my bike I have had a few encounters with motorist. In a couple of these occasions I also had the opportunity to confront the motorist face to face. Usually because the car gets caught at a stop light which allows me to catch up to the car. What a bunch of wimps! These people are real tough when driving aggressively and scaring a fragile cyclist. But when confronted, the tail goes between their legs and they can not even speak. The same thing goes with some of these people that take over internet forums. Last October in Kona I had the chance to meet some of the people that post just about every day on Slowtwitch. One guy post in there so much you will think he owns the place. But when I met him in person he could not even say a word. Say something dude! Ok he is just shy and does not know me. Sure!
Bottom line; be careful where you get your advice. Many people seem to go to these forums to get advice from these perfect strangers who are sitting at their computers just waiting for your question. Many times they are not there to help you but rather to validate themselves and their ideas.
Originally this post was to be about racing marathons. We often get marathoners and people who like to race an Ironman and feel that they have to be able to do a marathon before they do an Ironman. I always tell them to please don’t. Just because you can do a marathon it does not mean you can run an Ironman marathon well. I have seen many prolific marathoners struggle in an Ironman for lack of endurance or proper Ironman training.
Running a marathon requires a lot of training energy and about a month or recovery. This is time that should be better spent getting ready for the long Ironman training period and working on strength or technique rather than run miles. Your performance in the Ironman marathon will be decided by your long bike training, bricks and long runs every weekend. Not by racing a marathon in the spring.
Of course, many people that I have this conversation with are quick to point out how so and so did a marathon and did awesome on tri season. The problem with this argument is that “did awesome” on tri season is relative. We think that without having to pound one self for 26.2 miles the tri season would have been even more awesome.
A 26.2 mile marathon is just pounding. A marathon is too short in time to give you endurance training. A 100 mile bike ride with a 4 mile runs will give you tons more endurance and you can do this many times. A marathon is not fast enough to give you leg speed. A 10K or a half marathon is much better for that. Finally a marathon is too fast to teach you Ironman pacing. You regular aerobic long runs are much closer to what you can do in an Ironman marathon. Most people in a marathon race start out way too fast and later slow way down. That is easy to do when one is fresh, doing that after 2.4 miles of swimming and 112 miles of riding is a different story.