Vladimir Ryabushkin
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
TIPS ON ATHLETE CONDITIONING
AND COMPLETION OF IRONMAN TRIATHLON
Translation from Russian by V.Y. Lymarev
Samara 2020
UDC 796.093.643.2+929Riabushkin
Riabushkin, Vladimir Yurievich.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE / Vladimir Riabushkin ; translation from rus- sian by V.Y. Lymarev. – Samara : Ofort, 2020. – 120 p. : il.
ISBN 978-5-473-01296-5
Book by Vladimir Ryabushkin, President of the Samara region triathlon Federation, is dedicated to the Ironman «Iron distance». In it, he talks about his childhood, youth, how he came to play sports without being a professional athlete, about his experience of passing this distance, about failures and victories. The book also provides practical tips and recommendations for those who are ready to test their strength by going the Ironman distance.
The book is addressed to everyone who loves sports and wants to become an «Iron man».
UDC 796.093.643.2+929Riabushkin
* * *
Riabushkin Vladimir
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
TIPS ON ATHLETE CONDITIONING AND COMPLETION OF IRONMAN TRIATHLON
LLC “Ofort”. 443080, Samara, ul. Revolyucionnaya, 70, lit. 3, оffice. 405-02.
telephone: +7 (846) 973-70-80, +7 (846) 973-70-55.
Printed in Russia.
ISBN978-5-473-01296-5 © Riabushkin V. Y. , 2020
© Lymarev V.Y., еnglish translation, 2020
© Design of the publication. LLC “Ofort”, 2020
INTRODUCTION
In writing this guide, I attempted to give brief recommendations how to complete Ironman triathlon with minimum health impact and no unnecessary costs and how to become an “ironman”.
Don’t forget that this guide is intended for regular people who never did sports professionally.
But I hope that even active and ex-athletes can find something useful in it. If you decide to follow this guide and to complete Ironman, you will understand how unusual or, I could even say, unique it is.
The main priority is not to win the first prize but to complete the track within given time.
I imagine the reader of this
book as a person with a full-time job and family, with all related responsibilities and cares, quite a fulfilled person. But there is still competitive spirit dwelling within the reader, an urge to realize their potential even more, to test and find their physical and spiritual capabilities in a hard trial. And if you come up with such desire, you will get an opportunity to fulfill it. There are many ways to do it.
You only need to find out how to combine these ambitions with many responsibilities and everyday chores of a modern person, how to make all and not to lose everything. Probably many of you heard about “ironmen”. The book you read will give you a clear picture on the “iron distance”, provide you with the
motivation and skills to complete the course in order to become an “ironman”.
There are plenty of books, articles and videos on this topic, you can easily find them on the Internet. But the more you know, the more questions and doubts you have, just like I did. True understanding came only with experience as I tested the obtained information on myself through trial and error. I want to share my knowledge and prove with my experience that a person that never did sports can still become an “ironman”.
WHAT IS IRONMAN?
Many people know what Olympic triathlon is. In order to complete it, you must swim 1.5 km, ride 40 km on bicycle and, finally, run 10 km, with no breaks between these three stages.
The “iron distance” of Ironman is based on same principle. It starts with swimming in open water for about 4 km. As athletes complete the swimming stage and change clothes in the transition area, they start the cycling stage of 180 km. Upon its completion and after passing another transition area, they enter the running stage of 42 km, in other words, full-fledged Olympic marathon. All mentioned stages are a single race course that must be completed with no breaks in between.
Participants are given 16-17 hours to complete the course (time varies with different organizers, so read the rules of each competition thoroughly). If a participant runs out of time and fails to complete the course, he gets disqualified.
There are also time limits within the course: max 2 hours for the swimming, and no more than 10 hours for the swimming and cycling stages combined.
There’s also a so-called Half Ironman, or Ironman 70.3. This distance includes an open water swim of about 2 km, a 90 km cycling race and a half-marathon run of 21 kilometers. The time limit for Half Ironman is between 7 and 8 hours.
The slogan “the most important thing is not to win, but to take part” characterizes Ironman very accurately. The main thing is not to show the result better than the others, but to reach the finish line and meet the time limit.
HOW TO GET READY
for Ironman
There are three options to prepare yourself for the “iron distance”.
The classic strategy, the most common in various sports disciplines, is training under the guidance of a professional coach. It’s not that difficult to find coaches for the three distinct disciplines that make up the Ironman complex: running, swimming, cycling. But, unfortunately, there are not many good coaches who specialize in Ironman, and in Russia they are few. I don’t believe in “remote coaching” when there is no direct contact between a coach and an athlete, there is no possibility for the coach to analyze and correct the athlete’s technique. And remote coaching is very expensive. In my opinion, it is not reasonable to spend serious money on any training programs that are not customized to you. You can find them for free.
The second option is to train for each of the three sports separately; in this case it is easier to find qualified trainers. But here there will be a problem of matching the schedules of the three types of training with your schedule, taking into account the times when the coaches and you are available for training. In
addition, this option will be very expensive. In addition, everyone who trains long enough knows: A good cyclist is no longer as fast after the swimming stage as a good runner after the cycling stage. This is exactly the complexity and exclusivity of the “iron distance”. In my amateur opinion, it makes sense to engage coaches in certain sports to learn the technique, if you have never swimming, cycling or running at all.
The third option is to make a program for yourself based on the literature you’ve studied and start training yourself. But I’ve already told you: in the process of self-study there may be many questions – maybe more than answers. After all, there are so many people, so many opinions, and everything has to be tested experimentally by yourself.
