Originally Posted by
InfinityMPG .
Sorry in advance if a month and a half is considered thread resurrection.
To your original question: is that enough time to train for an Ironman?
Yes. That is plenty. You could compress the h-ll out of that if you wanted to. If you want to get serious, you can finish a full length Ironman in 2013. I'd say 2012 but most of the official, full Ironman Brand events are sold out already. You could still fit a late Half-Ironman event into 2012 if you want, though. With a good base you can compress training for a half into just a few months. It's not ideal, but if we're talking about survival then it could work.
It sounds like the swim is your biggest hurdle, but I'm not getting a full idea about your swimming background. Any pool-length swimming experience? Just summer club fun?
If you're learning from the ground up, then a real live instructor may be the best bet. If you do something like one supervised lesson a week or month you can keep costs down but learn a lot, or for the free route, just swim at the local pool and ask people who seem knowledgeable for critique. Supplement with normal training days of course. If you have basic swimming experience you can get away with just videos, but if this is ground-up experience then without critique there is a chance you'll develop bad habits that you won't know about. Swimming is all about water confidence, and "no one fears to do that which he is confident he has learned well." -
Vegetius
Once you can take on the pool, find a lake. Personally, for open water swims I put my GPS watch under my swim cap and wait for the 1-mile beeps to see how far I've gone. You can also use mapmyride or similiar web sites to check distances between points at lakes.
As for surviving the swim in an event, one thing to remember is that you don't
have to be on your stomach. Back stroke is always an option. You can back stroke the entire distance and still make the time cutoff. And starting from the rear of the group is certainly an option, but this will depend on the event. If it's an official Ironman 70.3 or 140.6, you can see a lot of variety in the way it's conducted. For instance, Ironman Louisville is a big mess for swimmers. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmzreosxxY
Imagine being a slow swimmer but having 600 people behind you just because of the way they start this event.
Austin 70.3 is another mess. Check out the start wave order:
http://ironmanaustin.com/course/swim-waves/
They start the pro's, then they basically start the slower groups before they start the faster groups. They start the fastest group last. Now that's good for the race organizers because they can close the swim early, but it's bad for slow swimmers because all of the fast people ARE behind them and WILL catch up to them. Trampling results.
Other events are mass start, which are probably better for newer swimmers. In those you can jump in whenever you want, just make the time cutoff.
So pick your event carefully. The official Ironman events in your area may have unfavorable swim conditions, so be sure to check the unofficial events too. My first 70.3 was only 150 people. That's manageable. Some sprint and olympics even have their swims in indoor pools. That's
very manageable.