Champion Ironman Joe Bonness tackles endurance races, alligators

Growing up in the hills of rural Wisconsin laid the foundation of Bonness' current success as a triathlete, since he pedaled his bike everywhere he went. A round-trip to school was 20 miles. "I've been biking since I could get on a bike," he says. "That was our means of transportation." In high school, his bicycle of choice was a fixed-gear single-speed Gitane track model, "the cheapest, highest performance bike on the rack at the time. It cost $89, and weighed 17 pounds."

Today, the 52-year-old Bonness is a construction company CEO and has a stable of high-end Trek bikes at his Naples, Fla., home, including a mountain bike, a time-trial bike, and a road-racing rig. The triathlon bug bit Bonness in the 1980s, shortly after he and his wife Sue moved to Florida, and it was cycling that led to his first forays into the sport. "I actually rolled into it kind of slowly," he says. "I started doing the bike leg of an annual triathlon, with a team.

"What happened was the triathlons got shorter and shorter. They started as Olympic distance events, but eventually turned into sprints. It just wasn't worth it to go out and do all that training for a 10-mile bike. So, at that point, I figured I might as well do the whole thing myself."

Beginning in 1987, Bonness became enamored with the entire event, and eventually he discovered his niche -- endurance events. He entered his first Ironman event at the Great Floridian Triathlon in 1991, and placed fourth overall. In 2000, he entered five Ironman races, finishing each in sub-10 hour times. He first qualified for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in 1994 and has raced there every year since.

Bonness finished 2007 with a flourish, winning his age group at Ironman Wisconsin in September, winning his age group at Kona in mid-October, winning the top spot overall at the Great Floridian Triathlon a week later, and then taking top honors in his age group at Ironman Florida in early November, and a second place (50-54) at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships the following week.

If that schedule sounds daunting, it pales in comparison to the workout regimen that Bonness maintains. Six mornings a week, Bonness is in the saddle, pedaling, and he runs along local beaches or trails every other day. The intensity of the Floridian sun usually dictates what time of day he laces up his running shoes.

"Your training is going to be very poor if you're running under adverse conditions, so you want to run under the best conditions possible," he says. "You do want to build up the ability to be able to handle the heat, so I want to go out and attack the heat at times. On the other hand, I want to maximize the effects of training. That's where the early morning and sunset runs are best, so I get out there during the cooler parts of the day"

Bonness fits distance swimming (one to two miles) into his non-running days, but he'll often go for a short post-run plunge to cool down. He eschews any kind of formal weight training, opting instead to get his upper-body exercise naturally through his love of woodworking and trail building. "If you're out there swinging a pick ax for a couple of days, it's amazing how your swimming stroke improves," he says.

Training in open water can have its drawbacks. In the Gulf, Bonness must be wary of Red Tide, jellyfish, stingrays, and the occasional rogue manatee. His freshwater alternative -- Willow Run Quarry -- is a popular hangout for swimmers of a different and dangerous kind. "This past year, I got out there a little too late in the year, but everything looked fine," he says. "All of a sudden, there are these gator eyes looking at me. He had swum underneath me, came up on the other side from shore, popped its head up and wanted to show dominance.

"I was a heck of a lot closer to the gator than I was to the shore. I put my head up, trying to show dominance of the area. He inflated and showed that he was about a 14-footer, so I had to show him that I was a 16-footer. I was kicking my legs, holding my arms up as I was backpedaling to shore. It took awhile to chase him away, too. He wasn't too happy to leave. They don't like being challenged."

For a slightly less hazardous outing, try your hand at Bonness' workout.

MONDAY
Bonness' training week starts with a 30-mile recovery ride first thing in the morning (he's typically up by 6 a.m., after 5-and-a-half hours of sleep). He'll pedal with a group of 10-20 riders, maintaining a double pace line and an average speed of roughly 20 miles an hour. He doesn't bother with a heart-rate monitor. A late afternoon swim, either in the Gulf or freshwater quarry (or local pool after dark) wraps up the day.

TUESDAY
Bonness is in the saddle again, but the workout is much more difficult. Typically, a smaller group (four to eight riders) will put in 40 miles, with 30 miles of it at a very fast pace, between 27 to 29 miles an hour. "We're hitting it pretty hard," he says. "That one's a killer." At noon, or late afternoon (depending on how high the mercury is pushing), Bonness will go for a run. Depending on where he's at in his race schedule, he'll run anywhere from five to 13 miles, maintaining a mile pace between 7:00 and 7:30.

WEDNESDAY
Another group road ride, usually between 40-44 miles, at a controlled pace (a maximum of 25 miles an hour), "except for the couple of sprints that we toss in," he says. Another late afternoon swim is followed by an evening session in his backyard hot tub to loosen tight muscles, especially his lower legs.

THURSDAY,
The day begins with a Rotary meeting, and then Bonness heads down to the beach for his weekly distance run. "The long run has to do with the Ironman or marathon distance," he says. "Basically, I add a mile a week to the long run until I'm up around 22 to 23 miles. Even in the off-season, that run tends to be at least 10 miles."

FRIDAY
The workweek ends with another controlled-pace group spin on the bike with several sprints and "a pretty hard finale for the last mile and a half," he says. The ride averages roughly 25 miles an hour. That afternoon, Bonness is back in the water for another mile or two.

SATURDAY
A non-race weekend starts with a cycling workout that mirrors Tuesday's hammerfest. "It's team time trial, a straight-out, very hard effort for about 44 miles," he says. When the sun starts to drop, Bonness will be running again, on the beach.

SUNDAY,
A larger group convenes for a distance ride of between 70 and 120 miles. "The group ride is about 70 miles, at a pretty good pace, coming in at about 25 miles an hour," says Bonness. "I'll stop and have a coffee, recuperate a little bit, get the battery recharged, and then go back out and finish off the ride from there. I'm a firm believer in broken workouts to be able to be sure you're in your best possible shape." The afternoon is broken up by his final swim of the week, and another visit to the hot tub.