Brilliant write up @Mr-me and congratulations.
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Lovely reportā¦. I can really relate to your performanceās, and it really motivates me, overall you are just a bit better than me, so your reports push me to try a little harder.
For me ultra cycling has taken over from Ironman, I love the multi day aspect, I love the planning on top of the training, I love the low key organisation and i love going from point A to point B.
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I am sitting at a friends house 5k from Cascais. Feeling chilled, everything ready for the race tomorrow. Sea looked pretty choppy today
Tomorrow is all about pacing, I will make a big effort not to smash the bike early on
My setup is unchanged for the last few years, a new front Tyre is the only change. I have also lifted my aero bars by 12mm, i may not be quite as aero, however, will be more comfortable and I can climb better on aerobars
Letās see how I feel this time tomorrow
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Best of luck.
Ok - this is the best thread on triathlon on the whole internet, it needs to come back to the top.
What are some of the benchmarks do you feel
Is required for sub 9? FTP = 320w? CSS 1.25? Run threshold 3.30 min/km?
I do remember on Twitchhunt someone saying a sub 1h sprint was an absolute requirement.
Iām a long way from sub 9 but geez - this is an inspiring thread.
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Having enough time to train and recover is critical I guess, before the plan is even written.
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Single. Under 35 yo. Part time job. No kids. No mates outside your tri club. No other hobbies, studies or interests. Probably donāt drink much. And to be a triathlon obsessive bore in all likelihood.
Summary
Being mostly facetious here. I know two folks who are 9ish hour territory and at the time they only ticked off 60% of that list. Theyāre now recovered well rounded humans.
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Chris and Matt were both working FT? But also weāre committed and talented!
Especially if you do a sub 50 swim 
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Gordo Byrn just went 9:03 having turned 55 this year. He describes is training in good detail. He has a couple of substacks on it and a youtube channel. He acknowledges that can do more hours than most amateurs but his training is all there.
ETA- This was at Roth.
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Matt didnāt go sub9, though. Did he?
Savaloy wasnāt under 35 when he was trying.
Not sure he managed it either.
He was a 50-52mins swimmer and ran a ~75min half.
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(Savaloy) 9:02 in Austria aged 40. I met him in St Polten in 2010 same year iirc. He was all in though outside work and wife was 100% onside! I think once he quit Tri sheās got her own back ever since 
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The other Matt, MrMe
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If Iāve learned anything, itās that I did my long Ironman training runs and brick runs too hard; certainly once I got a GPS watch and didnāt focus on RPE/HR like I did in my early years when I was fastest.
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The only time I was in true sub 9 shape, I dislocated my shoulder 3 weeks before Roth in 2022 - still went 9:40 swimming with one arm
Before my crash my FTP was 335 and weight around 67kg - so genuine 5w/kg (as opposed to Zwift 5 w/kg). I was aiming for a 4:30 bike, in May I did Cyclotour Leman (176km) in 4h2m so it was realistic.
My expected IM run time was around 3:12 - I ran sub 3:20 previously in Roth, Lanaza and Hamburg
My expected IM swim time was 1:10, CSS around 1:40
I am an outlier as itās unusual to go sub 9 without a sub 1 hour swim pace - My bike was strong enough to compensate
I think I could still go sub 9, however, the commitement to training is unreal - I was doing an average over 17 hours per week for around 12 months. I am not seeing a massive fall off in my performance, just a fall off in my motivation to train that much
I donāt think that I realised it at the time, but that crash knocked the motivation out of me to perform at the highest level, I also started to do stupid stuff like TCR. I donāt think that ultra long distance cycling is great training for IM
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Bloody hell, thereās a name I havenāt heard in about 15yrs. I thought heād be older than that.
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Rather than FTP which depends on CDA or weight Iād either go with 4.5W/KG FTP or to be very slippery. 3:30/K run sounds alright but Iād say 2:45 standalone marathon?
Both depend on being at least a decent swimmer, around an hour or less, anything slower and you need to be a beast at either swimming or running.
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He came back to endurance sport about 2 years ago or so. He had been active but with young kids, he didnāt want to spend all that time training.
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I was:
Married
47 yrs old
X2 kids currently 11 and 14
Full time work
My only real life friends at the time were actually outside of triathlon
Iāve always struggled with my swim but managed to get it down to just over the hour - wetsuits are a massive advantage for me. I can keep up with people in ow that leave me for dead in the pool.
Running injuries forced me to get good on the bike.
When I decide on doing something I tend to go all in (whether I like it or not!)
I work full time but Iām self employed and this has helped with fitting training in - that being said my training hours were actually higher when I was employed in the NHS.
Iāve got 13 years of very consistent training in my body.
All of that helped me to go sub 9 twice last year.
Perhaps inevitably, since ticking the sub 9 box my interest in triathlon has fallen off a cliff. Iām still training consistently and have no intention to give up exercise. Iām down to race Leeds in a few weeks and Nice in September. That will be it for me and Ironman. Maybe Iāll do a few halfs in the future?
My life is well set up to accommodate things that absorb me so Iām hoping that in the gap thatās created by the end of Ironman I might find something else to consume me. This time hopefully something that might leave me better off financially than worse off.
For anyone consumed with the idea of sub 9 these respective pictures of my car and my TT bike probably says all that needs to be said 
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That bike is a weapon. That car isā¦
Fantastic achievement!
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I can see a car/bike photo thread comingā¦
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