Feb 20

Feb 20 What's harder than an Ironman, ultramarathon, or marathon?

While the main theme of this blog is ultrarunning destinations, I’ve also been fortunate to have experienced other endurance activities such as Ironman triathlons. As such, a question I get asked a lot is: Is an Ironman the hardest thing I've done, or more simply, what’s harder than an Ironman?

When it comes down to comparing races, there are a lot of factors involved, such as the weather at the race, elevation change, and quality of the course. There are multiple websites that track the relative difficulty of Ironman courses, such as RunTri and Endurance Nation. I especially like the SufferLevel score from Endurance Nation, as it is a prediction of race difficulty based on current race conditions where the race will be held. One of the best examples of how the race conditions are a big factor is the move of the Ironman Louisville race from August to October. The August weather in Louisville is oppressive, averaging 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 celsius) and 77% humidity, and even worse if it's a cloudless sky, while the temperature in October averages 70 degrees (21 celsius). After the time of year was changed, the DNF % went down from 16% (two years were actually at 26%) to less than 7%. The year I competed, the DNF rate was 8.5%.

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However, there are not any websites comparing all disciplines of races, including their elevation change, terrain difficulty, DNF rates, and more. So, I’ll give my view based on my experiences. I’m qualified to give an opinion on this topic since I’ve completed 3 Ironman distance triathlons, 4 half distance Ironmans, a 100 miler, 13 road marathons, and too many to count runs over 50k, including races and solo running adventures. My journey into endurance activities began with half marathons. As I got confidence in the longer distances and training, I moved onto marathons, then trail marathons and from there onto ultramarathon distances. Once I completed a 100 miler, I was looking for something new, and decided I should get into triathlons. Having never swum for more than a couple hundred yards, or ridden on a race bike, it was an enormous challenge to train in all the disciplines. I also had limited time since the Ironman was less than a year away from the point I decided I should do one. Swimming lessons, using the Total Immersion Method, were the highest priority to get started, and then it was onto picking a tri-bike, and getting into many hours on the bike in aero position.

The reason for such detail on the Ironman training is to highlight the biggest difference between Ironmans and 100 milers, which is that the training is far more technical, time-consuming, and logistically difficult for a Ironman triathlon. Especially if you are traveling, it’s hard to find a pool you can just stop by and swim at. Irrespective of my race ratings below, I’ll state that triathlon training is much more difficult than running. The one exception to this rule though was training for the Bataan Memorial Death March. This race requires 35 pounds (15.8kg) to be carried, and since I wanted to run it vs. just hike it, and to avoid injury and build muscle, I spent a year slowly ramping up the weight every couple weeks.

My personal difficulty scale of race types, hardest to easiest:

Difficulty Ranking	Race Type	Experienced At	Time (Hours:Minutes)	Cutoff Time (Hours)
1	100 Miler Trail Ultramarathon	Pinhoti 100	28:42	30
2	Offroad Ironman Distance Triathlon	Wilderman Triathlon	25:26	28
3	100k Trail Ultramarathon	Black Canyon Ultras	17:57	20
4	66k (40 mile) Trail Ultramarathon	Hounslow Classic	16:51	17
5	50 Miler Trail Ultramarathon	Cactus Rose	12:56	12 (for Western States Lottery)
6	50 Miler Solo Trail Run	Rim2Rim2Rim	17:00	N/A
7	Ironman	Ironman Louisville Ironman Lake Placid	13:53 / 13:36	17 hours
8	50k Solo Trail Run	Neris River, Lithuania	9:00	N/A
9	50k Trail Ultramarathon	Laurel Highlands Ultra	7:25	10
10	Ruck Marathon (35 pounds / 15.8kg)	Bataan Memorial Death March	6:46	13:30
11	Half Ironman Triathlon	Rev 3 Knoxville	7:12	8:30
12	Trail Marathon	Bobcat Trail Marathon	4:48	8
13	Road Marathon	Nashville Marathon	3:49	6
14	Road Half Marathon	Spirit of Columbus	1:43	4

But even this ranking is incomplete since it’s difficult to measure the challenge accurately from a race vs. a solo run and my desire on that day to have a strong finishing place. The race cutoff times also have a big impact on perceived difficulty. For example, at the Pinhoti 100 miler, I was just an hour ahead of the cutoff times for the last quarter of the race. I was very stressed to keep going despite extreme pain in my knees so I wouldn’t DNF after all the effort. At the Ironman triathlons, I was always well under the cutoff time and could have walked the entire marathon course and still finished comfortably. Another stressed example was at the Hounslow Classic in Australia where I was near or at the extreme level of my output for the final 2 hours to finish in under 17 hours, and just made it. That was far more grueling than even the Rim2Rim2Rim that was much longer in distance, but didn’t have the same time pressures.

While fun to compare race difficulty, it doesn’t really matter since the focus should be on your experience and the bar you’ve set for yourself that day. All distances are hard, it’s just a question of how hard you make it on yourself. For me, trying to get my 5k time under 21 minutes is extremely challenging, but differently than any race I’ve listed above.

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