50 50 50 can it be done?

Pmaldini · 06-06-2015 5:01pm #1

this guy is attempting 50 iron distance races in 50 states in 50 days and I think it starts today.

http://www.usatriathlon.org/about-multisport/multisport-zone/my-story/articles/iron-cowboy-051915.aspx

he has done 30 IM's in 1 year which is a record but 50 in 50 days!!!

what do people think? is it nuts?

woody1 · 06-06-2015 5:14pm

yes , its nuts

Kurt_Godel · 06-06-2015 5:24pm

Nothing in that link about how fast/slow he does an IM in...

Reminds me of the time I met one of the 100 Marathon Ireland club runners, he told me he had run over 50 marathons to date, asked how many I ran... he couldn't believe that I didn't know my total. I asked him what his fastest was... I couldn't believe he didn't know his PB.

50 IM in 50 days? Whatever floats your boat, it's certainly doable, like a lot of these "slow and often" challenges. Personally I'm in the camp of being more impressed with a 50min IM swim.

RacoonQueen · 06-06-2015 5:59pm

From hearing Gerry Duffy talk about his 10 in 10...unless he is some sort of absolute superhuman, I don't think 50 in 50 is doable.

Pmaldini · 06-06-2015 8:12pm

RacoonQueen wrote: »

From hearing Gerry Duffy talk about his 10 in 10...unless he is some sort of absolute superhuman, I don't think 50 in 50 is doable.

i'd have to agree with you there RacoonQueen, I think he will make 15, possibly 20 but 50 is taking endurance to a new level altogether. saying that, Gerry Duffys decaman was on a very difficult course in pretty awful weather, I don't think the ironcowboy is going to face a course like that

tunney · 06-06-2015 8:19pm

RacoonQueen wrote: »

From hearing Gerry Duffy talk about his 10 in 10...unless he is some sort of absolute superhuman, I don't think 50 in 50 is doable.

If gerry made it sound easy who would buy his books or pay for him as a speaker.

Pmaldini · 06-06-2015 8:23pm

tunney wrote: »

If gerry made it sound easy who would buy his books or pay for him as a speaker.

true, but I presume you have seen the profile of Gerrys course, it certainly wasn't easy

menoscemo · 06-06-2015 9:01pm

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Reminds me of the time I met one of the 100 Marathon Ireland club runners, he told me he had run over 50 marathons to date, asked how many I ran... he couldn't believe that I didn't know my total. I asked him what his fastest was... I couldn't believe he didn't know his PB.

Was that UM1?

RacoonQueen · 06-06-2015 9:10pm

tunney wrote: »

If gerry made it sound easy who would buy his books or pay for him as a speaker.

Indeed...sounded horrendous though. Do you think 50 in 50 is possible? Taking into account they've to travel also between each one!

sconhome · 07-06-2015 12:26am

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Indeed...sounded horrendous though. Do you think 50 in 50 is possible? Taking into account they've to travel also between each one!

Fine balance between being quick enough to maximise recovery time between events and slow enough to be able to complete all.

Choose the courses right and the crew management and be grand

In fairness to GD his courses were horrible the run was a nightmare. Proper mental endurance stuff.

Tec Diver · 10-06-2015 11:56am

AKW wrote: »

Fine balance between being quick enough to maximise recovery time between events and slow enough to be able to complete all.

Choose the courses right and the crew management and be grand

In fairness to GD his courses were horrible the run was a nightmare. Proper mental endurance stuff.

I guess the plus side for GD was not having to travel between the races.

pointer28 · 10-06-2015 1:05pm

This guy seems to be having it tough already.

Falling asleep on the bike on the third day.

Oryx · 10-06-2015 1:22pm

I was going to say, sleep deprivation would be the biggest issue. GD discusses that in his talks. You take so long to complete each one, that you have little time for sleep. And the impact of the exercise makes heat regulation difficult too, I know a lot of the competitors in his deca succumbed to hypothermia.

bryangiggsy · 10-06-2015 1:51pm

10 in 10 days is nuts....with a very high dropout rate

50 in 50 ..never going to happen. The things people do for attention these days.

griffin100 · 10-06-2015 2:15pm

This is entering into permanent body damage territory I think. I've read some horror stories of how long it takes to recover from a Decca IM, this is getting just stupid.

Oryx · 10-06-2015 2:21pm

So how far will he get?

pointer28 · 10-06-2015 2:31pm

I'd be surprised if he got much further than the 10, maybe 12 or 13 if he's lucky.

Not that I wish him bad, I'd love to see him succeed.

iAcesHigh · 10-06-2015 2:36pm

Yea, I wouldn't think 20 without traveling would be possible, and with traveling I would think he won't do 15. Crossed fingers for the guy though...

bryangiggsy · 10-06-2015 3:15pm

iAcesHigh wrote: »

Yea, I wouldn't think 20 without traveling would be possible, and with traveling I would think he won't do 15. Crossed fingers for the guy though...

why fingers crossed? its daft.

Enduro · 10-06-2015 3:24pm

10 in 10 is pretty easy in comparison to a non-stop race. All that time off the clock to eat and sleep makes things far more straightforward. There have been plenty of 9/10 day non-stop expedition ARs in past, with lots of interesting and varied sleep strategies played out. Having the time and facilities to have real meals between days also makes the likes of 10 in 10 much easier.

I think a lot of people definitely find sleep deprivation to be the hardest thing to deal with in multi-day races. And the most likely discipline where the nasty consequences could kick in is definitely cycling. A significant proportion of race-ending injuries in AR would have come from people falling asleep cycling (usually going downhill on roads at speed).

My guess on this: If he has the ability to do his slowest day in 20 hours then he can do the full 50 (I reckon he should be able to make it on 3 and a half hours sleep). That's also presuming he's well fat adapted and can shovel enough real food in in a small amount of time either side of sleeping, and whilst cycling and running. Otherwise he'll probably end up chasing his tail as sleep deprivation requires him to take more breaks, which in turn decreases the gap between active days.

Oryx · 10-06-2015 3:41pm

He has to travel state to state though, so there is no time for a 20hr day. They say each race must be completed in 14 hours.

Oryx · 10-06-2015 4:18pm

http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2015/06/09/50-ironmans-in-50-us-states-in-50-days-is-it-possible

griffin100 · 10-06-2015 4:19pm

30 has been done apparently.

Who knows, perhaps he'll get to fifty.

peter kern · 10-06-2015 4:21pm

bryangiggsy wrote: »

10 in 10 days is nuts....with a very high dropout rate

50 in 50 ..never going to happen. The things people do for attention these days.

it would be an easy task for the likes of petre vabroushek, mike schifferle etc ie 8.20 h ironman guys that do 12 ironman a year usually being aorund 10th place overall.
for an 12 hour ironman even a deca man is a challenge like garry duffy who was more like a 12 hour Ironman. ( great achievement fo ran 12 hour ironman but nothing spceila for a pro triathlete, not that iam saying its easy )

sconhome · 10-06-2015 4:27pm

Sorry Peter but youre not going to do 10 / 15 or 50 IM races back to back at that 8:20 race intensity. Maybe some one fit enough for 8-8:30 racing cantering around in 13.5-14 hours at a nice easy level might do it but they'd die of boredom first IMO

Oryx · 10-06-2015 4:29pm

AKW wrote: »

Sorry Peter but youre not going to do 10 / 15 or 50 IM races back to back at that 8:20 race intensity. Maybe some one fite enough for 8-8:30 racing cantering around in 13.5-14 hours at a nice easy level might do it but they'd die of boredom first IMO

And kill their career.

peter kern · 10-06-2015 4:55pm

AKW wrote: »

Sorry Peter but youre not going to do 10 / 15 or 50 IM races back to back at that 8:20 race intensity. Maybe some one fite enough for 8-8:30 racing cantering around in 13.5-14 hours at a nice easy level might do it but they'd die of boredom first IMO

??? did i say they would do 8.30 I said this number to indicate that they are athletes that are not far of from world class in ironman ( nowhere near world class in half ironman )

you are aware what mental sterenght it needs to run a 2.48 marathon of the bike .... ?
a high ftp allows you to go faster at an lower ftp and espcially petre and mike recover very quickly from races
so of course they dont go 8.20 for them dong an 1.15 hour swim a 6 hour bike every day is a piece of cake and they can run walk 42 k ....

its the same like most top itu guys will mkae top ironman ( not all but 60 % do ) but every itu athlete that has been to the olympics can crank out an sub 8.30 h ironman.
perforamce is performance and if they want with some time of adaption they can do that.

or let me say it in anohter the tour de france done clean is reall sport 50 ironman a day is just nowhere near that performance ( and again do not get me wrong i do not say that doing 50 ironman in 50 days is easy and it requires skills. ( at the same time if you do a 150 000 euro bet with me I will take it and do 50 ironman in 50 days in 1 year - I have travelled 2 year alon on the bike and have a bit off an idea and if somebody takes my luggage and cooks for me it would be fun to travel that way.

sconhome · 10-06-2015 5:05pm

peter kern wrote: »

??? did i say they would do 8.30 I said this number to indicate that they are athletes that are not far of from world class in ironman ( nowhere near world class in half ironman )

There were two ways of interpreting what you said.

1. an 8:30 Ironman would have 15.5 hours to recover per day (not sustainable IMO)

or

2. I understood what you meant which is why I put in this bit:

AKW wrote: »

... some one fit enough for 8-8:30 racing cantering around in 13.5-14 hours at a nice easy level might do it but they'd die of boredom first IMO

and as Oryx suggested potentially ruin a career in the process by missing out on a racing season.

peter kern · 10-06-2015 5:11pm

most bordies would understadn the very basics that if one has an im pb of 8.20 they would not do that 10 x in a row .
but for an 8.20 im doing a 13 h im is way ieasier than for an 12 hour im going 14.30.

so again for an top athlete to prepare for 50 in 50 is way easier than for a guy that was 15 stones a few years ago.

AKW wrote: »

There were two ways of interpreting what you said.

1. an 8:30 Ironman would have 15.5 hours to recover per day (not sustainable IMO)

or

2. I understood what you meant which is why I put in this bit:

and as Oryx suggested potentially ruin a career in the process by missing out on a racing season.

sconhome · 10-06-2015 5:33pm

peter kern wrote: »

most bordies would understadn the very basics that if one has an im pb of 8.20 they would not do that 10 x in a row .
but for an 8.20 im doing a 13 h im is way ieasier than for an 12 hour im going 14.30.

so again for an top athlete to prepare for 50 in 50 is way easier than for a guy that was 15 stones a few years ago.

You mean the ones that understand IM is not 70.3?

iAcesHigh · 10-06-2015 9:34pm

This video is about 30 IM in 30 days, somebody mentioned this earlier so I though you might be interested. I'm just about to watch it

peter kern · 10-06-2015 10:00pm

AKW wrote: »

You mean the ones that understand IM is not 70.3?

no that is not good enough, they have to understand that doing an half ironman in 4.30h is more difficult than doing an ironman in 15 hours
and doing an half ironman in sub 4 hours is by far more extraordinare than 50 50 50 ;-) ( at least if they watch the english premiership and not the irish soccer league)

Pmaldini · 12-06-2015 1:59pm

his coach is doing a blog, http://www.ironcowboy.co/blog/

looks like he suffered a lot in the heat in Vegas yesterday, he has 6 done, only 44 left to go:eek:

iAcesHigh · 16-06-2015 5:54pm

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9 days... good luck

boysinblack · 18-06-2015 7:51am

Can't believe he has managed to do 12. Some machine of a man , still think 50 will be far too much though ...

EC1000 · 26-06-2015 8:00am

20 done. He's giving it a good go anyway...

Pmaldini · 26-06-2015 8:24am

EC1000 wrote: »

20 done. He's giving it a good go anyway...

fair play to him, thought he wouldn't be able to go on after the bike crash the other day but he seems to be a bit of a machine

bryangiggsy · 26-06-2015 9:26am

He does not look well at all imo.

Jakey Rolling · 26-06-2015 9:36am

Not to denigrate his achievement thus far, but there's some negative comment emerging over the fact that he completed his "run" on an elliptical trainer yesterday.

Surely that puts paid to any notion of 50 consecutive IM distances?

Oryx · 26-06-2015 9:36am

bryangiggsy wrote: »

He does not look well at all imo.

Ive been thinking that. Getting more hollow looking every day

Kurt_Godel · 26-06-2015 9:37am

Doing one of the marathons on an elliptical? C'mon, that's game over.

68 lost souls · 26-06-2015 9:48am

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Doing one of the marathons on an elliptical? C'mon, that's game over.

However much I want to see him succeed I have to agree here

Oryx · 26-06-2015 10:08am

Theyre doing a lot of explanatory talk on his blog. Blaming injury, and the fact that he couldnt walk. They seemed to have got him to do the only thing he was able for. I even thought the indoor stuff they did before this was a cop out, I mean, its an achievement, but you cant give him a place in the record books for 505050 now. An indoor IM is not an IM, and an elliptical is not running.

Im still awed by how far he has got, but while watching through my fingers, because right now its like a slow car crash.

EC1000 · 26-06-2015 11:10am

Off to google elliptical....

Jakey Rolling · 26-06-2015 11:16am

Posted as a reply on his FB page - fairly upfront that it nullifies his attempt, but planning to carry on anyhow...

QUOTE
A crash from Day 18 subjected my hip to a worse condition than originally diagnosed. After 18 days of the 505050, I knew from experience this particular injury would likely prohibit even walking, or strain it to the point of jeopardizing the remaining 31 days. Faced with ending the project, and consultation with my team, I approved the suggestion to use an elliptical for the marathon as an alternative.

In retrospect, I clearly see how this decision was problematic and at the very least naïve in how it would be received. Decision making in this low-sleep, high-stress, time-constrained environment has proved challenging, and I fear that environment interfered with how we managed the situation.

The use of the elliptical was inconsistent with my stated goal on Facebook of “50 Ironman Courses, in 50 consecutive days, through all 50 States.” Although there was no effort to hide the decision (which was highly visible on both on our Facebook and blog page), we should have been more open about the decision to the Iron Cowboy community.

I apologize for this mistake. The elliptical use reduces the credibility of the 505050. Physically, it does not have the same demands as a run/walk. Mentally, I found almost 6 hours on that machine the hardest marathon I’ve ever done. I recognize many of you are disappointed with this development, and many may even consider the project over. From my perspective, I still have a a lot of work to do. I hope you will consider this my “yellow card” and continue with me on this historic journey.
QUOTE

bryangiggsy · 26-06-2015 11:39am

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

Posted as a reply on his FB page - fairly upfront that it nullifies his attempt, but planning to carry on anyhow...

QUOTE
A crash from Day 18 subjected my hip to a worse condition than originally diagnosed. After 18 days of the 505050, I knew from experience this particular injury would likely prohibit even walking, or strain it to the point of jeopardizing the remaining 31 days. Faced with ending the project, and consultation with my team, I approved the suggestion to use an elliptical for the marathon as an alternative.

In retrospect, I clearly see how this decision was problematic and at the very least naïve in how it would be received. Decision making in this low-sleep, high-stress, time-constrained environment has proved challenging, and I fear that environment interfered with how we managed the situation.

The use of the elliptical was inconsistent with my stated goal on Facebook of “50 Ironman Courses, in 50 consecutive days, through all 50 States.” Although there was no effort to hide the decision (which was highly visible on both on our Facebook and blog page), we should have been more open about the decision to the Iron Cowboy community.

I apologize for this mistake. The elliptical use reduces the credibility of the 505050. Physically, it does not have the same demands as a run/walk. Mentally, I found almost 6 hours on that machine the hardest marathon I’ve ever done. I recognize many of you are disappointed with this development, and many may even consider the project over. From my perspective, I still have a a lot of work to do. I hope you will consider this my “yellow card” and continue with me on this historic journey.
QUOTE

Nope...you have done a great job but have failed the challenge. Game over.

Pmaldini · 26-06-2015 1:55pm

i have to agree with you bryangiggsy, i hadnt realized he used the elliptical trainer, as i mentioned earlier i thought he wouldnt go on after the bike crash, even though spending 6 hours on an elliptical must be torture i dont think his 50 50 50 now has any merit, kudos for doing 19 but he should call it a day now and come back stronger next year if he really wants to do 505050, just my 2 cents..

bryangiggsy · 26-06-2015 3:34pm

Pmaldini wrote: »

i have to agree with you bryangiggsy, i hadnt realized he used the elliptical trainer, as i mentioned earlier i thought he wouldnt go on after the bike crash, even though spending 6 hours on an elliptical must be torture i dont think his 50 50 50 now has any merit, kudos for doing 19 but he should call it a day now and come back stronger next year if he really wants to do 505050, just my 2 cents..

Agreed
The challenge was 50 IM (swim bike run) not 49 (swim,bike,run) & 1 (swim,bike,elliptical)

He fell asleep on the bike ..crashed and could not do the run so he was not fit enough to continue..end of. He is not of sane mind right now his advisors should make the decision for him!!!

Enduro · 26-06-2015 5:06pm

bryangiggsy wrote: »

Agreed
The challenge was 50 IM (swim bike run) not 49 (swim,bike,run) & 1 (swim,bike,elliptical)

He fell asleep on the bike ..crashed and could not do the run so he was not fit enough to continue..end of. He is not of sane mind right now his advisors should make the decision for him!!!

Yeah, someone definitely needs to emphasise that he's now training for the next one, and no longer completing the current one. Maybe he knows this, but whether its useful to carry on is questionable to say the least.

Oryx · 26-06-2015 5:07pm

Given his current state, I wonder how long it would take for him to be able to attempt this again.

RacoonQueen · 27-06-2015 9:56am

This is like the 100 marathons in 100 days guy who skipped 9 days

50 50 50 can it be done?

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