How fit are you after Ironman?

I don't mean directly after, or maybe even a year after. When you give up long distance do you go back to your pre IM state or better or worse?

Hello kit, according to hastily drawn statistics and dodgy reporting I have found that it is claimed that for the great majority the fact that IM is an endurance race means little to before and after fitness and that people remain either active or not after Ironman depending on pre-IM behaviour.

If you ask about people who have long IM distance careers, they were probably already active people and remain active and fit even after IM is over.

I look forward to what the actual IM athletes in the forum have to say.

Can't answer the quesiton.  Too many variables to quantify.

How long after?  Weeks, months years.

What is your measure of 'fitness'?

What other exercise/training might the athlete be doing?

M..o.use wrote (see)

Can't answer the quesiton.  Too many variables to quantify.

How long after?  Weeks, months years.

What is your measure of 'fitness'?

What other exercise/training might the athlete be doing?

 

I guess I'm asking if people remain more active after IM than they were before, or if it was a 'one off' (one standing for the period they did IMs)?

Have remained the same as pre IM, perhaps a little more than I used to do having got used to long training weeks, Theres always the next challenge

usually I stop for 3 months and do nothing but get fat (again) this time it has renewed my desire and am back out already, racing the local half marathon this weekend and its only been 2 weeks since IM Wales

I usually keep my training up, primarily because I'm a masochist and really enjoy lots of hard training and how it makes me feel. This year of course I've been quite inactive due to my hip replacement op which took me out for 3 months, and I'm not allowed to start back to running until Christmas. But you can bet that come the new year I'll be back to training like a maniac again.

worked very hard doing sprints, worked hardish doing IM, going to work a little harder and smarter for double then im going back to shorter distance, mind you i said that last year before my first IM, shorter distance is obviously more intense whereas long distance is labourious so differing sorts of work and fitness imo