Tell us how hard core you are!

I still only 17 and only do short course so my biggest days are not very big but the biggest day i have ever done is 5hr bike in the morning(98miles) and then had a a hard gym sesion in the afternoon.

Man i was stiff the next day

Andy

I went for a 125k run in one day. I live in Singapore and decided to run round singapore in a day. Set off at 5am. Got all the way round the island and back to starting point by 10pm that evening. 17 hour run. Great fun.

Our Tri Club in London Thames Turbo , has an annual competition which nasically is designed to waste you , that many use in training for Ironman (20 plus of us from the club are doing Challenge Barcelona next month) , the day is 5.4km swim , down to the hill repeats in Surrey South of London , 10 hill repeats up Staples Lane , approx 4 to 5 minute climb , turn scream back down and repeat , then back to Richmond park - 2 laps (22km) now that is a solid IM training day .

Ride across New Jersey Saturday and backed that up with a sprint distance triathlon the next day, on 3hours sleep. It comes with a health warning and some knee pain, but it was the best weekend of overtraining I ever did. Gains were immense.

I'm done some pretty nifty 7 hour bricks, 4 mile open water swims, and 4 hour indoor training rides, but my toughest, hardest, hardcore workout was just last week, right before I left town for a lazy vacation on the coast.

I figured I better punish myself with a killer workout, and I only had two hours after work to do it. So rushed in from the office, ran 5 miles to the gym (completely forgetting any fuel) and decided to tackle the weights, which I hadn't done in awhile.

Not wanting to mess around, I threw a hefty 135 pounds on the squat rack, a formidable weight for us skinny endurance athletes. After doing twelve reps, which didn't feel so bad, I grabbed a set of 35 pound dumbbells and lunged across the gym and back. Then I did it again. And again. And again. And again. Basically squatted and lunged for a full hour, numbing my mind to the fact that I had to run home still.

When I finally took the first few awkward steps to stumble home, it felt like I had somehow damaged my fragile ass nerves. But with iron will, I committed to running home with my lower body in a full spasm.

The next day, when I sat on the plane, I'll admit I grimaced from my screaming hamstrings and glutes. But it was pretty hardcore. Sitting here five days later typing this note, they still hurt.

I participated in a 200 mile run relay in preparation for ironman florida. I needed to work on my running and this was an option. I did 3 relay segments totaling 21 miles on flat and hilly terrain during different hours of the day, under hot and cool temps. It took us something like 25 or 26 hours. While not running we were sleeping and relaxing in the car.

The other craziest training day was a few weeks later when I was out on a long hard bike ride with some friends and about 50 miles into the ride I hit a car that turned in-front of us at a speed of around 21-23 miles an hour. I hit the back panel of the car with the side of my face and flew over the truck, landed some 11 feet away from the place of impact! OUCH!

The things we do to become a faster ironman, that's just crazy!!!

In the Swiss Alps this year, rented a heavy MTB with not clip in shoes and my and two mates left from Verbier at 6am, climbed on the road for two hours, then up a dirt road for an hour into the "snow line" carried the bikes for an hour or two, descend for a bit, climbed again, and finished with the climb up the St Bernard, before back to Verbier at 7.30 just as it was getting dark. A total of 3,900 vertical on the day. What made it really hard core was returning to the house that had almost no food and all the shops in Switzerland close at 7pm - too knackered to go out so we ate our meagre stock of Cliff bars and some breakfast cereal and went to bed hungry....pics are here: (Click for the Link ...)

First discussion of the week post from a listener that has been with you from the very start. I have 2. First I read an interview with Dave Scott back in the early days and he said that once he did an 8 hour windtrainer session staring only at a black piece of cardboard in front of him. Well as Dave Scott has and will always be a hero of mine I thought the right thing to do was to try this session myself. Extremely mentally draining and the 8 hours felt more like 24. Second was a session completed on the beautiful Coolongatta beach in Queensland, Australia. It started with a simple 90 minute Ocean Swim, followed then by a 4 hour and 30 minute run on very soft sand in bare feet. Completed with the same swim we had started with, however due to fatigue and a rising of the choppy conditions, this same swim took us 2 hours. We all have the renowned shuffle and difficulty walking after Ironman races, however after this soft sand beach run I literally could not walk for 3 days due to soreness in the gastroc and soleus muscles. All this said. It is workouts such as these that give you the mental toughness and confidence to be able to complete anything physically and/or mentally in life. Keep up the amazing podcast guys. We all appreciate it.

Updated on 9/9/2009 11:39:49 AM

Been getting up at 3am for the long ride here in the Middle East because it is so damn hot during the day left at 3:15am (while 34degrees outside) after half a rotten banana for breakfast and only carrying two gels so I could train my body to work while depleted... arrived home 6 hours and 200km later after dropping and losing one gel in 45 degree heat having stared at my front wheel for the last two hours of the most painful ride of my life.. not the longest session but certainly my stupidist.... not a patch on Tristan's experience though.. 8 hours on a wind trainer is 7hr 55mins too long...

First the non-training day - The west highland ultra - like Madman's Welsh outing, only longer (same organisers, 3.5 mile swim, 175 very hilly bike and 35 mile run).

Toughest day was supposed to be a 90 mile cycle - crashed exactly 1/2 way out in the hills with no mobile reception, cracked my helmet, broke my aerobars and was feeling sorry for myself. Worse was the realisation I had to ride home (not flat).

Any day after day two of a mini-epic event - getting up to go swimming breaks your heart and knowing you've a 100+ mile cycle isn't great.

Oh, that reminds me, last mini-epic at Adam's "Crab Camp" I decided to be a lightweight and take a direct route home as I was knackard. I ended up back at base 45 minutes after everyone else after getting lost and turning the 110 mile route into 135 - just shows I should have sucked it up and stayed with the boys.

Fegan you forgot to mention that I gave you the PratNav programmed with my home address that allegedly ran out of batteries and then miraculously recharged itself. Wonders of modern science eh? That said fair play in that even after that debacle you completed the run off the back. You're a bliddy legend son.

For me I reckon a 48hour team treadmill challenge (that you kindly namechecked on the show) finishing 1hour prior to the start of the London Marathon ranks quite highly on the quality training scale. I don't think a total of 42miles at under 10k PB pace in the 48 hours before a marathon is textbook tapering. Huge fitness gains though and I even took out fatboy Ramsay on the Mall ruining his finisher's photo.

Probably a multi-brick day where I rode 30 miles/ran 30 minutes/rode 30/ran30/rode30/ran30. Definitely a long day.

In training for the NZ Coast to Coast

One morning I did a 2 hour hilly offroad mountainbike ride over a mountain range immediately followed by a 3 hour rough trail run climbing and returning from a 700 metre summit.

In the afternoon I did a 2 hour paddle just to fill in the afternoon.

At 3pm I picked up the kids from school and took them to the playground.

It was the final monkeybar session that really made the difference!