Its actually slightly worse than that.
At 60K you are still at the same elevation as the start and then it just drops. You can’t take advantage of this as your legs are f***ed from the previous hills. Mrs Sparky says that at one point she was zig zagging down the hills to make it less painful 
Oohh sounds delightful!
And I thought Helvellyn was bad 
Isn’t the down route longer as well?
Yes I think it is. The downhill finish moved to the Rugby ground, a couple of years ago, which makes it just a little bit longer!!
If Covid restrictions are eased, some time in the spring I will be doing a 60km run with 3000m over 3 mountains (Although thinking about adding a 4th mountain to bring it up to 90km with 5000m). You are welcome to jump on an Easyjet flight to Zurich and have a long weekend of practice 
What age group are you in? going on your swimming and other splits I’d say you are in with a good shout of KQ, increased slots at Frankfurt.
If I ever got to Kona I don’t think it would be a target race, the field would be too good for that, so easing back even 5% is likely to improve recovery time without losing too much time in the race I think?
And good luck with them obvs!
45-49 - it’s around 12 slots and 9:30-9:45 finish time
“In theory” my splits should be fine, but people like @Jorgan have followed my many mishaps over that last 6 years
Kona would be an experience and not a goal race.
Much like AG champs.
The goal is the start line.
If the stars aligned and I made it, then I’d likely defer one or the other.
Running a marathon on the Sunday and then jumping on a plane probably isn’t the best idea and I’d lose time on the Big Island by arriving Mon/Tues
Yes, at that end of the field unless you are way in front of everyone it’s about avoiding mishaps like punctures, eating etc.
I’d have thought 9:45 should be a doddle for you if you do, as long as the weather isn’t extreme heat or cold & windy!
Ironman is very much about execution. Then factor in luck and the weather conditions, and there’s not much margin for error.
I think if you want to go sub-10 for example, you really need to be in 9:30 shape and have a good day with everything falling into place. You want sub-11? Then you need to be in sub 10:30 shape and so on.
This^ from @jorgan combined with how difficult it is to predict marathon speed when fatigued or performance in a day long race with different course demands, until know in better shape than on a previous occasion. Seems from reading around that it’s easy to think in shape for say 10:30 to go <11, when actually have underestimated accumulation of fatigue.
That said, obviously sometimes if you’re in 10:30 shape you’ll go 10:30. But if time goal is clearly important then it’s nice to have that wiggle from for things to go below par on the day, hence lots of us make ABC goals for same race.
But what if, as competitive athletes, which we all clearly are, in training you were posting numbers that were indicating, say a 10.30, from an initial plan of 11.
Don’t tell me any of you would leave the goal as 11 and ‘hope’ if things go well, you’ll dial it up (mid race??) and see if you can squeeze the time down a bit. No way. You’ll all have amended your goals based on your superior training performances and your new goal will be 10.30 or very close.
That would be how to make sure you go OVER 11 hours 
What is “sub-10” shape anyhow?
It’s different things for different people.
But you only know what your shape is if you’ve done it before.
So you don’t really know if you’re in sub-10 shape.
Ideally, you need to be executing a plan and hope it all comes together;
Swim. RPE6
T1. Easy. But steady.
Bike. 0.72 IF. Eat or drink every 25mins.
T2. Easy. But steady.
Run. Max 70% HR first half. Can go up to 74% for third quarter. Then at 30km, if there’s anything at all left, run that last 12km at a steady pace.
Eat or drink every 25 mins.
I reckon that’ll do it for most people 
I certainly din’t but I try to guage it with performance markers through the year. If in your IM training you put in a 4:30 Half youre in with a shot. Or something like that.
But your plan has to built on proven performance in training, not some goal you picked out a hat before you started training?
Apologies @Matthew_Spooner only just read this. That is a very kind offer which I will bear in mind. Your mountains are a little better than the one’s that I have become accustomed to in Worcester & Warwick 
As for pretty much everyone, 2020 has been a year of real change for me. This year I had planned real investment and change to grow my osteopathy clinic. It has been an up down couple of years and 2020 was make or break. Break it is then. I was doing soome P/T DBA work anyway so doing that 4 days a week now. Previously I was doing a 5 1/2 day week (mix of DBA and osteopathy) with x2 days that were 12 hours long. So more time to train right?
So on to 2021:
Triathlon
Overall do more as I have more time and build to a place where I can really get stuck into IM training for 2022. Hopefully there will be a TriTalk massive at IM Lanza 2022.
Non-Triathlon
School report…
Running B
Not helped by a growing belly, I have managed over 1,000 km. The most pleasing part is really investigating persistent calf problems, and hopefully strengthened my glutes, ankles and investigated heel-toe drop.
Times pretty average, but consistency is key.
Swimming C
No open water, been to the pool once a week out of lockdown. Very, very average.
Cycling U
Three rides on a 15 year old bike, the longest being c. 18k.
Gym (ish) C
Probably could do a little bit more, but in the routine of twice a week, with 500k of indoor rowing completed this year.
Long gone are the days of slinging about big weights, now it’s all about making me a better runner/multi-sport athlete.
