Three Ironman events in five weeks is almost too much to imagine, but Joe Bonness manages these feats through a demanding training schedule which includes up to 300 miles a week on the bike, 70 miles a week of running, and 10,000 yards in the pool.
It would be hard to come up with a more spectacular five-week run. An age-group win in Kona, an overall win at the Ironman-distance Great Floridian Triathlon two weeks later, and then, an incredible 9:11 clocking, good for 14th overall, at Ironman Florida just two weeks after that.
Which only goes to prove that there are Ironmen, and then there's 46-year-old Joe Bonness.
This is a guy that heads out for a "warm down" run after he finishes the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona -- you know, the one where the rest of us mortal beings either go directly to the medical tent for an I.V., or desperately try to get into the medical tent for an I.V.!
The day after an Ironman, Bonness likes to get out for a bike and a swim, some "active recovery," he says, so he can get himself ready for his next Ironman, which is usually only one or two weeks away.
"I'm actually feeling pretty good," he said the day before Ironman Florida this year. "I had an extra week to recover for this race."
Heck, an extra week of recovery for this guy is like a year of rest for anyone else. At Ironman Florida, Bonness came within a minute of his fastest-ever Ironman, set a few years ago at another Ironman distance race in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and had to win a sprint over the last 100 meters to ensure he would be the fastest age-grouper of the day.
The extra week really was a luxury for this incredible age-group champion. In 2000 Bonness did the same three races, but didn't have that "extra-week" luxury -- it was three Ironmans in three weeks! (Oh, and in case you didn't think this guy was superhuman, here's another head-turner: he did all three in less than 10 hours!)
Bonness manages these incredible athletic feats through a demanding training schedule that can include as many as three hundred miles a week on the bike, 70 miles a week of running, and 10,000 yards in the pool.
Did I mention the fact that he sandwiches those 20-24 hours a week of training around a "regular" 60-hour work week as the CEO of "Better Roads Inc.," a Naples-based road construction company?
"I don't sleep a lot," he says.
Yeah, you wouldn't want to sleep, or even nap, say on a Super Bowl Sunday, after running a 1:21 half-marathon, now would you? Not Joe, of course. This is a guy who would much rather make sandwiches for his crew and get out for a sailing race than take an afternoon nap!
Bonness came to the sport of triathlon late in the game, comparatively speaking. After growing up riding 10-miles to and from school every day, Bonness became an avid cyclist. He competed in the cycling leg for a few triathlon relay teams in his hometown of Naples during the mid-1980s, and as the race shortened from an Olympic distance to a sprint distance, he figured it would be fun to try doing the entire event. He had such a good time that he did another four triathlons that year.
Within a few years he was ready to try an Ironman, and the rest is history. His first Ironman was the Great Floridian in Clermont, Florida, and his fourth place finish there got him totally addicted to the "ultra-distance" part of the sport.
Since then, Bonness has developed his own training style that manages to keep him improving, and excelling. It includes lots of work in what many coaches might call the "grey-area" of effort -- lots of rides and runs in the "upper-aerobic" zone, and very few intervals. ("Intervals just get you injured," he says.) Whatever the program is, he would be nuts to change it -- it seems to be working just fine!
Bonness is probably one of the only top triathletes -- pro or age-group -- who uses a "funny-bike" (650c front wheel and 700c rear wheel), another choice that many coaches might question. Question, that is, until they saw Bonness rip through an Ironman bike course!
"I've been getting faster over the last five years. I don't know if that's because I haven't reached my potential yet, or if it's because my recovery is getting better as the years go on," he says. "You pick up more things as far as proper nutrition, proper training. I had a tendency to go out and injure myself a lot more five years ago - I'm probably more in tune with how my body works at this point, and at the same time, I feel like the heavy endurance training is kind of like the fountain of youth - you're releasing a lot more growth hormones to help your body recover."
"Fountain of youth" or not, it makes absolutely no sense that a 46-year-old man can race this well. Bonness takes it all in stride:
"Once I'm into shape ready to go for Ironman distance, it seems like the fitness level is there, and it doesn't take that much more to be able to get back up again for another Ironman in a couple of weeks," he says. "I guess if you really tear yourself up at the Ironman, it might take a while, but I usually feel that I'm in top shape within three or four weeks without any problem."
Uh, yeah ... OK. Don't "really tear yourself up." Remember those three sub-10 hour Ironman races in 21 days? Or this year's age-group win/ overall win/ age-group win string over five weeks? Most of us wouldn't be able to move after one such effort -- let alone three in a few weeks!
Bonness' love of Ironman racing is matched by his wife Sue's love of attending the events. When she's not watching her amazing husband, she keeps herself busy showing dogs. (You'd need to have a pretty demanding hobby if you were married to this guy!)
"My wife looks forward to coming to these races," he said at Ironman Florida. "She tells me that If I don't qualify for Hawaii, she's going to find someone else who has."
Sue can look forward to many more years of travel, though. Bonness plans to compete "into his 50's."
"Each year I say I'm going to back it off, but every year I look at the schedule and it just looks like so much fun."
The triple won't be available for Bonness in 2003 -- the Great Floridian falls on the same day as the Ironman Triathlon World Championship.
Which means Bonness will have to settle with just two Ironman's over a three weekend stretch next year. Just think what he'll do with all that recovery time!
Reprinted from
Ironmanlive.com: http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/vnews/topstories/1011304731
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