Finish an Ironman triathlon
The marathon starts at mile 112, which is a strange way to describe a marathon, but that is what it feels like when you have already swum 3.8km and cycled 180km. Your legs stop reporting for duty somewhere around kilometre thirty. Popular races such as Kona or Nice open registration a year out and sell every slot within hours, so the day you sign up you are already committing to a version of yourself that does not exist yet. Most organisers give you seventeen hours before the lights along the finishing chute go off. You finish in the dark, to a stranger shouting your name like they have known you for years.
Practical
- Cost
- $1,500–8,000 (entry, gear, travel)
- Best time
- varies by race; many popular events run spring to early autumn
- Difficulty
- Hard
- Time it takes
- 6–12 months training; race day itself 8–17 hours
- What people get wrong
- People overtrain the swim, which is the shortest leg, and undertrain bike-to-run transitions, which is where races are actually lost. Many also register for a popular race without realising it sells out within hours of opening, sometimes a year ahead.
- With
- Alone