Ironman Wales Results Analysis: Compared to Ironman UK

Congratulations to the 1134 triathletes who completed the inaugural Ironman Wales triathlon in an average time of 13:02. Any race over the 13 hour mark is one of the toughest in the world, and the 12% DNF rate, also one of the highest of all ironman events, proves the point.

With two races in the United Kingdom, each known for difficulty (UK average finish time in 2010 was 13:01, nearly identical to 2011 Wales, though in 2011 UK was much faster at 12:35), we compared the two by age group to see how comparable the courses may be.

Predicting Your Ironman Marathon Time After Swim and Bike are Completed

You're entering the transition area of an ironman triathlon, after finishing the swim and bike legs of the race. With 26.2 miles to run, and typically with wobbly legs after riding 112 miles on the bike, as you're changing into running shoes, it's natural to wonder: how long is it going to take me to run the marathon? What will my finish time be?

At this year's Ironman Wisconsin, more than 2200 athletes were possibly thinking the same thing. After analyzing the results of all finishers, the answer is as simple as this: the average marathon was equal to swim + bike time multiplied by 0.6.

If you start your marathon with 7 hours elapsed in your race, your marathon target should be 7 hours x 0.6 = 4.2 hours = 4 hours, 12 minutes. (remember, the .2 = 20% of an hour, or 12 minutes in this example).

Ironman Wisconsin 2011 Kona Qualifying Times Analysis

Congratulations to the 65 driven and determined triathletes (out of 2244 finishers; see our Results Analysis) who qualified for Kona at the 2011 Ironman Wisconsin. Generally, we expect Kona qualifying times to be faster compared to the previous year, but there were some surprises. Additionally, 4 slots were moved from male age groups to the women's side, which would normally suggest that with fewer slots, in M30 to M45 last qualifying times (LQT) would be significantly faster.




Not necessarily so. In fact the last qualifying time in only 5 age groups was faster, compared to 2010. And in the age groups that lost slots, the last qualifying times were actually slower than in 2010. Heat that led to a 13:24 average finish time for all athletes may have something to do with it, but wouldn't account for so many slower times. Could the field have been weaker this year? Could the trend toward fewer and fewer slots per race be discouraging more triathletes from training hard enough to qualify? Time will tell as the 2012 qualifying season continues.