IM Finish...has just finishing lost its prestige? (Page 3)

thats a good point...

right on bra'

Besides, it's not really IM unless you do Kona

I've done a bunch of standalone marathons, and they are all special. None of them were easy, a couple were downright brutal. All of them are an accomplishment that I am proud of. I did them for me mainly, and a few I did for friends, to help pace or support, or just for fun. I can't imagine doing them for bragging rights or to impress someone else.

I'm about to start training for my first Ironman. Prestige? You have got to be kidding. I'm doing it because I want to, feel I can do it, and because a good friend is going through the first time experience with me. I just want to hear Mike Reilly call my name, I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks. 

http://www.marathonguide.com/features/Articles/2010RecapOverview.cfm

look like 503,000 in 2010 finish marathons.  Then again I know people who do 5 to 10 a year so really the number of unique people might be way less. 

Yes, I bet the same effect holds true for the IM finishes.  I'd like a link to that article that states the 500K number for IM finishes.  I have not seen that.

Yeah, they said when we were at Tremblant that of the 2100 races only 800 were first timers.... 

Way to go, 2Goggs.  You killed the thread.

IM Finish will always be awesome to me!

"IM Finish will always be awesome to me!"

100% Agree.

A a matter of fact, I haven't considering participation in Ironman as "prestigious" but more like an honor.

You can be the biggest football fan in the world but you'll never snap the ball on the 50 yard line at the Superbowl. You can be the biggest motor racing fan but you will never drive a qualifying lap at Monaco.

If you are a huge fan of triathlon and its history and lore, and I absoltuely am, you can race in the very same race as Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Scott Tinley, Scott Molina, Paula Newby-Fraser, Craig Alexander, Chris McCormack. You are in that race, literally.

When you get off the plane in Kona the week before the race the hugeness of the history hits you. You become a very, very small part of something significant in endurance sports. You feel it. You think about Dave Scott and Mark Allen coming through that airport in 1989, the "IronWar" year. It sends chills down your spine.

I've raced Kona and I've covered it as a journalist. Both times I was awed by the event.

^^^ Winner, winner chicken dinner

I think finishing an Ironman is a pretty big deal still. I'll never do it in 9 hours and could see how to pros and FOP age groupers who do several a year, like it's their job, might not have the same view as myself. Everybody I know thinks I'm crazy for signing up, so I'd say from the average joe's viewpoint it's still a pretty big deal.

Come Nov 2nd around 7pm (hopefully) I'll fully understand just how big a deal it is.

Hahaha! I'm sketched out, but, I totally want to see if I can do this...I'm in 100%

It's a personal thing. I just finished my first IM in 16:28. I was training to go faster, but a lot of factors made it impossible for me to replicate what I'd done in training. Finishing was my ultimate goal anyway, but a person still has to be in pretty good shape to cover that distance in 17 hours.

The "walkers" comment got me. I walked a half marathon once while injured. It was harder to walk 13.1 than to run 26.2, I kid you not. It took nearly 4 hours. I will never do that crap again. Walking may seem easy 'cuz we all do it every day, but try walking for hours and hours. My feet and back were killing me by the end. I wouldn't take it lightly!

Anyway, back to it being a personal thing. I have NEVER been athletic. I have no natural athletic ability. I tried to do sports in high school. I practiced twice as much as other people just so that I could stay slightly below average. I have a $600 road bike. I finished dead last in the swim in an Oly tri last summer and was able to improve my swim enough to complete the swim in an IM where a lot of people didn't make the cutoff. I busted a$$ to be good enough to finish in time. I had injuries, I had illness, I had work stress and overtime and life responsibilities that wouldn't just go away because I wanted to do an Ironman. To me, just to finish is absolutely amazing.

If I could quit my job and afford a coach and drop a few thousand on a road bike and make triathlon the biggest priority in my life, yeah, I'd probably finish a lot faster. Then again, I may start to get really tired of running, biking, and swimming.

I set my goals for me. If someone wants to diss me for not being faster or going farther and imply that it's because I'm not working hard, screw them. They don't know.