If there’s a pinnacle of human grit, it might just be the Ironman, a gauntlet that fuses three of the toughest disciplines into one punishing race. The people who complete them think a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full 26.2-mile marathon is a good way to spend a Sunday. These aren’t folks jogging a couple of miles before work or cruising around the block with their kids on bikes. They’re on a mission to push their bodies (and minds) to the absolute limit.
Sam Long, a multi-time Ironman and Ironman 70.3 champion, is one of them. Earlier this year, he notched wins at Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga and Ironman 70.3 Eagleman, then followed it up with a top-15 finish at the Ironman World Championship in Nice, France.
Stacking races like that might sound superhuman, and Long admits it’s brutal. The physical grind is one thing, but the mental toll, he says, can be even tougher. While most people would savor a World Championship finish, Long was already locked back in the next morning.
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“I basically gave myself the night of the race,” Long says. “So I finished the race around two o’clock. And I had a nice dinner with a lot of my supporters there, about 15 of us. We did some champagne toasts and enjoyed, and then I was still in bed by 9:30. And then I woke up the next morning, and I had to completely recenter and refocus and get ready for my next race.”
In recent years, Long, now 29, has made recovery as much a priority as training. He admits he’s lucky to bounce back quickly after years of conditioning his body, but he doesn’t leave anything to chance. To keep himself running like a well-oiled machine, he leans hard into the basics—sleep, diet, and daily recovery work.
“I’m doing cold plunges, at least once, if not twice a day to help with recovery, and then sleeping a lot, eating the best possible diet,” he says. “So it’s really paying attention to that recovery and then just doing some easy maintenance training. That easy maintenance training for me is still three to five hours a day of training.”
Just days after crossing the finish line in Nice, Long was already back in training mode with only a short window to prep for his next race. He might be in peak shape, but staying sharp means listening to his body and dialing in the right kind of work. Because the marathon pounds so heavily on his legs, he spends that first week easing up on long runs and rides, giving his lower body time to bounce back.
“The first week out, basically, I’m recovering. The marathon is such a load on the legs that they need a little more recovery than the upper body,” he says.
Once recovery wraps and the next race approaches, Long gradually ramps up intensity again.
“As I get closer to the race, and my legs [have] recovered from the past race, I start to do more biking and running to make sure that I still have the volume in my legs, and I’m still used to going a couple hours.”
Tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET, that preparation continues with a live ride along Kona’s Queen K Highway through ROUVY, the indoor training app that brings the world’s most iconic routes to life. Fans can follow along on Instagram for a real-time look at how a top Ironman keeps sharp—no shortcuts, no downtime, just calculated effort and relentless focus.
