The Long Run: Ironman Marathon vs Standalone Marathon

You've run a marathon, finished in a pretty decent time, and now have your sights set on racing an Ironman. What should you expect your ironman marathon time to be? We crunched the numbers and the results are in Triathlete Magazine's December 2011 issue.

A sneak peak is below. Short answer: add 20-30 minutes, for starters.

For more, see our comprehensive marathon and triathlon stats and analysis section.

Ironman Arizona 2011 Results Analysis

More than 2200 triathletes completed the 2011 Ironman Arizona in an average finish time of 12 hours, 55 minutes. Of 2974 registered to compete, 21% did not start; of those who began the race, 6% did not finish.

At an average finish time of 12:57 overall from 2009 to 2011, Ironman Arizona remains ranked in the middle of RunTri's Toughest 25 Ironman Races list.

With a welcoming flat and fast bike course, the average bike split is only 48% of overall time (50% is the norm), but time advantages gained on the bike are lost on the run. The average 26.2 mile run split of 5:04 is among the slower one compared to 25 Ironman races.

 Compared with Ironman Florida, Arizona's marathon split is 10 minutes slower and those 10 minutes represent the gap between finish times of both races. For more, see our complete Ironman Arizona coverage.

Ironman Florida Kona Qualifying Times Analysis

In most ironman events, the competition to qualify for Kona  is increasingly fierce, but the qualifying times at this year's Ironman Florida proved to be the exception. In 2011, nearly 2500 athletes began the race, with as many as 500 hoping they might have a shot at winning one of the 65 available qualifying slots.

Qualifying times in 2010 were generally faster than in 2009, across most age groups. And it was generally expected that qualifying times in 2011 would be even faster. Surprisingly, is actually was 'easier' to qualify for Kona in Ironman Florida this year, as indicated by slower qualifying times in nearly every age group.

Adding an additional element of surprise were qualifying times in age groups that actually offered fewer slots in 2011 compared to 2009. We would have expected notably faster qualifying times in M35-39, which lost 2 slots, but that was not the case.