Ironman Hamburg 2018.- Can you do it?

Last Sunday was the first Ironman Hamburg and it was a great experience for the athletes and spectators. Maybe a few of you were there and the atmosphere sparked a flame.

In the last month there have been a lot of long distance triathlons in Europe; Ironman Frankfurt, Challenge Roth, Challenge Regensburg, Ostseeman, and Ironman Hamburg are just the ones that took place in Germany.  A lot of you would have followed or spectated at the first Ironman Hamburg, and found it awesome. Maybe it got you excited and you thought, I would like to do that! Can I do that?

In short yes.

If you watched long enough you would have seen that there were athletes of all sorts of ages, shapes, and sizes on the course and competing Ironman Hamburg.

It can be done and you have just over a year to prepare for it, which is enough.  Within reason.

The registration will open up on August 21st, so you have a bit of time to decide ;)

Before you decide to enter there are a few points to consider:

• Your sporting history - You should have a background in Swimming,  have done at least a Sprint triathlon, and some sort of endurance event  e.g.  100km cycle, half marathon, or marathon.  It is possible to improve a lot in a year, but to learn three sports and hugely increase your distance is not recommended.

• Have enough time to train. On average this would be around 10 hours a week with the biggest weeks up to 15 or 16 hours.  More can be done , but it is probably not going to be that productive if you haven't done that before. You are better off spreading your workload over weeks rather than days.

• You need enough money. You don't need to buy all the equipment, but you are going to need to have a wetsuit, a race suit, a racing bike, helmet, cycling shoes, and running shoes. Additional costs will be your entry fee for Ironman, a Half Ironman, nutritional products (gels, bars or drinks), cycling tyres and tubes, and probably another pair of running shoes.

• You need to get a coach or a trainer who can not only write a training plan , but also one that can write one specific to your needs and goals.They also need to be able to guide you. Training for an event is different for each athlete and the plan and support needs to be flexible to suit you. Any coach that writes a plan and says it has to be done like this or it won't work obviously hasn't been coaching enough. A lot of athletes either don't start or start not at their peak condition due to be over-fatigued. I meet a lot of people training for Ironman this year who looked broken during the build-up.  Whereas my athletes most of the time looked fit, fresh, and had a spring in their step. Your coach does not have to live in your city, but they need to be able to be contacted relatively easily.

• Decide on the goal a long way before the start of training and train for this goal. With Ironman there are generally three goals, Kona qualification, obtaining a certain finish time, or completing and enjoying the event.  

• Don't let Ironman dominate your life. You can still train well for the event without giving everything up.  How big a sacrifice you want to make will obviously affect your outcome on race day, but as long as you accept that things are perfect e.g  If you are not going to try to adjust your eating habits and what you eat you cannot expect to do 8 hours in Ironman.

• Can you train and motivate yourself to train alone? It is not that every session should be done solo, but on race day you are going to be focusing on your own performance, and will be effectively solo with group of other athletes.  

• Have the approval of your partner, and family before entering.  This last point is the most important.  If you do not have this it is going to be difficult to get all the sessions in or to live with our stress or conflict in your life.