What is the obsession with Ironman?

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  • M...eldy wrote (see)

    but aspires to be DF1.5 ...    image

    World class, Melds image

    And if Mo Farah (good but not the WR-holder) turned up to a 10k, he would probably do 27.xx, meaning that 42.00 is outside the 150% rule. Elitist things, 10ksimage

  • Crash Hamster wrote (see)
    M...eldy wrote (see)

    but aspires to be DF1.5 ...    image

    World class, Melds image

    And if Mo Farah (good but not the WR-holder) turned up to a 10k, he would probably do 27.xx, meaning that 42.00 is outside the 150% rule. Elitist things, 10ksimage

    I'd say most 'village' 10kms are won somewhere around 36 minutes. Very elitist. No point in turning up at all!

  • The 150% arguement falls down on age group doesn't it? Isn't that why tris have age groups and running has the senior, vets, super vets categories?

  • It wasn't very eloquent of me but hey I'm not a morning person.

    Still the idea that there is a time after which all finishers are not "competitors" demostrates that you do not have any understanding of endurance events nor the mentality that drives most of us to do them.

    Those that are gentically gifted speed wise have a huge advantage in many ways and it does not give them the right to mock those people that are slower.

     

     

  • Flat Footed wrote (see)

    The 150% arguement falls down on age group doesn't it? Isn't that why tris have age groups and running has the senior, vets, super vets categories?

    That's what I like about tri, Especially as in running Senior is from 18-39 for men, a huge range. Some smaller tris often only cater for Sen/Vet/Svet too.

  • Flob, sorry if I sounded pissy.  I finished something like 1000th out of 1650 in Ironman Uk 2 weeks ago (my first), without a single ounce of disappointment.

    Obsessed?  Perhaps, I'm already thinking about which one to enter next year.  But I'll also be racing several olympic distances and one or two middle distances.  I think IM is just that much more extreme, both in training input and the time and effort to do it (and get over it).  In my eyes that makes it a bit special.

  • Flob, putting my academic (and slightly geeky) hat on & to put the 150%/50% into some context.

     

    If the only people who turned up to race were those who thought that they would be in the top 50%, eventually only one person would turn up to each race.......

     

    I've only done 2 IM distance races, but the difference between the 1.5 times winners time & top 50% is a stark contrast:

    Ironman France 2008, winner was 8:34 so 1.5 times is 12:51, I was around 14:20 so outside the criteria at 1.67 times and 1,639 out of 1,953 finishers so 84% down the field.

    Norseman 2009, winner was 11:20 so 1.5 times is 17:00, I was only 34 minutes outside the criteria, hence very close at 1.55 time BUT I was only 194th out if 216 finishers, so 90% of the way down the field.

    Obviously neither would be a "result" under your criteria & I should probably have stayed in bed. However 1.55 times is very close but only 10% of the field finished after me, 1.667 times is much worse but i was higher up the field, which would you consider better?

     

    I think most of the  people here who are "obsessed by ironman" just think of it as a personal challenge (though some are challenging for honours), the attraction of the pirates for me was the attitude that an ordinary middle aged slightly overweight bloke could with the correct training, advice & support complete an ironman distance tri, which to most people sounds impossible.......

     

     

  • Oh how I love the numbers game, almost as much as The Engineer.
    Before I go off on One, I am hereby stating that I'm in it to Complete, not Compete. That if a sluggish unslim and less fit pensioner like Siggy can do it, then I can.

    Symes wrote (see)

    Certainly help getting in to events on flob's basis. Work on the assumption that a world record holder might turn up and you'll need to complete the VLM in 3hr 5min or not bother turning up, the GNR in 1h 30min and a flat-ish 10k would have you needing to finish sub 40min, top idea, right up to the point you realise it's fucking stupid image

    I've been prepping for triathlon for a year, and retired as an afleet for two due to lost focus and injury. I lost focus because I achieved higher than my top target. To put this into perspective, the randomly selected 1.5x the winner's time is an interesting choice of number. Without wanting to blow my own trumpet, my pbs are listed below as far as I can remember them. More interesting is what they represent.
    Marathon 2:58. (Top 3% in the UK at the time of VLM)
    HM 1:23:40 (top 2.1% Bath HM)
    10k 37:30 (5%: not so good as it was a small race full of whippets)
    Personally I consider myself to be VERY ORDINARY, and NOT YOUNG. These times were at the age of 48. Eight years of gradual progression with some advances and some setbacks. I have never been that dedicated and focussed athlete and much prefer cake and beer.

    Personally I think that you are welcome to keep smoking whatever it is that you are on. However, there is an unwritten side to your thought process, flogged at length over the years in the RW threads. How come British distance running has become so crap over the past few decades? Answer: Because we have forgotten how to train hard.
    Not crap? When was the last British person to run a marathon in 2:09?

  • So you wouldn't enter the London Marathon (which also imposes a cut-off, incidentally) because you wouldn't be within 50% of the winner's time, but you'd run the local village marathon because the winner would be slower?  Is that because you'd look better finishing 30th than 3000th?  And you claimed others were insecure?

    That might be your opinion, and you're perfectly entitled to it, but that doesn't stop it being bollocks.  IMO, of course.

  • Flobbers, my dear old thing, you make my point admirably. IM races have pros at the sharp end, so to compare it to running, you need to find a race with a top-10-in-the-world athlete or two competing and see if you can match your self imposed target then.

    Most longer races have cutoffs; roads have to be opened, organisers and volunteers have to get home for their tea etc. The IM cutoff is about 200% of the winning pro's time... but you don't see many 10ks with a cutoff of 56 minutes or marathons with a cutoff of 4:20; they're much more generous than IMs.

    Your running may be ok, but either your logic is faulty or your trolling is poor; at least two people on this thread are, to my certain knowledge, ever-so-subtly taking the piss. If you are DF3, your powers grow weak, old man image

  • I'm sure if there were a business case for it then IM would find a way to make the event longer. It's all about money in the end.

    Cur off's are special though - the atmosphere as we enter the last hour of the IM event is special and cheering the last person in is one of the best parts of the whole event.

  • How come British distance running has become so crap over the past few decades? Answer: Because we have forgotten how to train hard.
    Not crap? When was the last British person to run a marathon in 2:09?


    Could be that we're not reaching the pool of talent and theyre either not taking up sport or doing other things.  We're only a small country, how many people out of the 7 billion global population have run sub 2.09?  UK is 1% of the global population.

    UK cannot be good at every sport, but we pretty much hold our own in athletics.  We punch above our weight in Triathlon by quite some margin.

    I dont think we'll have long to wait for a British sub 2.09, just until Mo steps up to Marathon distance.

  • Crash Hamster wrote (see)

    If you are DF3, your powers grow weak, old man image


    He's following a well-worn path - insult lots of people by saying, in a roundabout way, that they're inferior to 'competitors', then justifying that by saying that it's just an opinion and it's OK in any case because he's just an average runner himself.  The next step will be to put that on the line and come out woefully short.

  • Perhaps if you knew the reason behind the 17 hour cut off point, there would be less criticism..... clue: it dates back to 1978, or so the rumour goes image

  • Having done a few now, I'm fed up of just being a Completer. How many times can you trundle round a course in 13-17 hours and still claim it's a major achievement? Once you've done a couple, you know it's not especially challenging to finish inside cut-off and you don't need to be very fit or athletic. So I quite welcome the "is finishing an IM all that" question. I won't go long again until I feel in condition to race, rather than just drag myself round feeling sick and broken.

    For the newbie, there's no comparison between short, where fit people ignore each other whilst taking themselves very seriously, and IM, where people share in the challenge of blasting themselves way out of their comfort zones to do something incredible. There's something spiritual about an IM that transcends finish times, positions and athletic competition. This Forum attracts a lot of new people and the way it makes IM accessible and inclusive is something I think ought to be celebrated. Nice debate.

     

  • I'd just like to point out that I am playing cricket in my back garden against my two neighbours (aged 4 and 7).

    I won the toss, decided to bat and at the drinks break I am currently 368* Not out.... As there are no pros to play against I am therefore the best batsmen in the world...fact...IMO

  • Blisters wrote (see)

    Oh how I love the numbers game, almost as much as The Engineer.

    image

  • Flat Footed wrote (see)

    I'd just like to point out that I am playing cricket in my back garden against my two neighbours (aged 4 and 7).

    I won the toss, decided to bat and at the drinks break I am currently 368* Not out.... As there are no pros to play against I am therefore the best batsmen in the world...fact...IMO

     

    Damn, spooned a return catch for 529.

  • It was a no-ball, surely?  Have you asked for a review?

  • I was stumped and prenounced out in a dead ball situation playing a game of cricket on a holiday campsite when I was about 9, ive never quite got over it.

    Ive only been able to live with it all these years as a couple years before, when playing with adults I was left to linger out of the way on the boundary and despite being told to leave it I caughted a high ball preventing a 6 and getting a wicket.  No mean feat for an 7/8 year old I can tell you.  I bet 50% of kids couldnt do that image

  • Yes... but what's this obsession with longer forms of the game being somehow... "better"? I mean, a 5-day game may be longer, but it's so much slower than a 20-20, which requires far more speed. Why do so many of you so-called "Pirates" insist on championing slow, long, forms of the game at the expense of faster and shorter?

  • Cos going all the way to France, Germany or Switzerland for a sprint tri is just fucking stupid. Don't you think?

  • Flat Footed wrote (see)

    Cos going all the way to France, Germany or Switzerland for a sprint tri is just fucking stupid. Don't you think?

    Not if it's what you enjoy. Why not combine a holiday with a hobby?! image

  • They don't play cricket in France, Germany or Switzerland. So you have significantly more chance of winning your AG there, and qualifying for the 20:20 world champs in Hawaii, especially if all the talent's shaving down for a sprint tri.

    Unless you're talking "French Cricket", in which case, Monsieur, tu es dans une monde de la merde.

  • slowerthanilook wrote (see)

    Yes... but what's this obsession with longer forms of the game being somehow... "better"? I mean, a 5-day game may be longer, but it's so much slower than a 20-20, which requires far more speed. Why do so many of you so-called "Pirates" insist on championing slow, long, forms of the game at the expense of faster and shorter?

    Exactly. This was my point when starting the thread. There is nothing wrong with doing IM, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of focus on IM on this forum and I just wondered why?
    Being fairly new on here, I did feel a bit that the vibe on the forum was "if your not doing IM then your not a triathlete" which is like saying if you're not running marathons then you're not a runner... Try telling that to Usain Bolt!! Maybe it should be renamed the Ironman Forum image.
  • What about long and fast? *throws spanner in the works*

    Pirates champion long distance because that's how it all started. Now there are Pirates in kit at all distances from Super Sprint to Deca. Whether I personally agree that's how it should be is besides the point, makes not one iota of difference what I think. It's become bigger than anyone ever imagined it would be, I bet. We've only been around for about 6 years and the growth is phenomenal.

    Mind you, I am a bit obsessed with Ironman and I don't even do the fecking thing. Just shout and carry bags.

  • TtA .. I think it was explained a few posts back, its where the Pirates started, the roots are in IM but they have spread over the years although the main essence is still Ironman, other threads start up and continue to be popular but no one censors what is started and what remains popular so perhaps the threads speak for the popularity of the distance ?

  • Flat Footed wrote (see)

    Cos going all the way to France, Germany or Switzerland for a sprint tri is just fucking stupid. Don't you think?

    depends what you mean by "all the way to France"

    we're off to do a sprint tri this weekend in France - just outside Calais at Gravelines

    it's probably closer than many races in the UK for us and we'll have a few days break as well

    are we fucking stupid for that? don't think so image

  • "We've only been around for about 6 years and the growth is phenomenal."

    errrm - check your maths Mrs F....PSOF fully started in 2005 which I make 8 years...image

     

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