Marathon and Ironman Training Plan: Qualify for Kona Averaging 8.5 Hours per Week

The following is an excerpt from the book Qualifying for Kona: The Road to Ironman Triathlon World Championship, by Raymond Britt:

When you're short on training time but have big racing goals, you've got to make the most of every hour you've got. If you want to qualify for Kona or PR in the marathon, and you've got less than 10 hours per week to train, this article can help provide a framework for your training plan strategy.

This section presents my training map for a high-performance year, which included:
  • Ironman New Zealand 
  • Boston Marathon [Marathon PR 2:54]
  • Qualifying for Kona at Ironman Lake Placid 
  • Qualifying for the following year's Kona at Ironman Wisconsin
  • Chicago Marathon
  • Ironman debut in Kona.


I averaged 8.5 training/racing hours per week on this training plan, with more training time per week in summer months and tapering up in Spring and down in Fall. The chart below shows actual swim, bike and run hours per week.

Absolutely essential to the success of creating and executing this plan are the principles in the following articles:
Day-by-day actual training and racing details are shown below. 

Training Map Day by Day Detail