All you need to know about Ironman Virtual Club, the online Ironman community with training challenges, Ironman VR races, prizes, discounts and training resources.
Launched on 1 April 2020, Ironman VC is an online hub for Ironman athletes, bringing Ironman VR races and challenges together with Ironman+ educational materials, coaching resources and rewards including discounts on Ironman-branded kit and merchandise.
To allow athletes to compete from home and live stream Ironman VR Pro races, Ironman has partnered with augmented reality cycling platform Rouvy.
Ironman Virtual Club is an online hub for Ironman athletes
“At the Ironman Group, our mission is to provide exceptional, life-changing race experiences for athletes of all levels from their first step to the finish line,” said Andrew Messick, President & CEO for The Ironman Group upon the launch of Ironman VC.
“We believe that under extraordinary circumstances such as these, athletes should be able to maintain the structure and continuity that training and competition provides. The Ironman Virtual Club is an innovative digital platform that enables our athletes to continue training with purpose, remain connected to our community and provides an opportunity to compete through the IronmanVR Series.”
Ironman Virtual Club Membership
Free to sign up, once you’re logged in to your Ironman Virtual Club account, you’ll hit your Ironman VC Dashboard. This gives you an at-a-glance view of your latest synced sessions as well as how you’re progressing in your challenges, your points and credits tally, upcoming races and results.
The Ironman Virtual Club can be connected to several other online training platforms including Garmin, Strava, Polar, Suunto, Runtastic, Nike+, Runkeeper, Fitbit, Tomtom, Decathlon Coach and Health Mate, so that your session data is automatically pushed directly to your Ironman VC profile.
As you complete sessions, you earn points based on distance rather than time with scores depending on the discipline. For example, you get 10 points for each kilometre of running and 2.5 points for each kilometre of cycling.
Every five points you earn is converted into one credit and when you’ve got enough credits, you can unlock special discounts via the Rewards are of the site on Ironman branded kit as well as gear from other Ironman partners including Roka, Hoka One One, Ventum, Santini and Compressport.
What Are Ironman Virtual Club Challenges?
Ironman Virtual Club features a host of challenges to keep you motivated with specific goals and sessions to complete – some set by Ironman U Master Coaches such as Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Matt Dixon and Lance Watson.
Challenges take place weekdays from Monday 12am GMT until 6pm GMT on Fridays. You have to sign up to take part in challenges (which are free) and once registered, your uploaded training sessions count towards challenge completion, with one activity able to count towards completing multiple challenges.
At launch, it appears that challenge progress doesn’t correctly function. For example, if a challenge requires two 5km runs, no progress is shown after the first run. However, once the second 5km run is uploaded, the status will change to complete.
When you complete a challenge, you have a chance to instantly win one of a limited number of prizes supplied by Ironman’s partners. You can repeat the same challenge as many times as you’d like during the weekly time window. You’ll also earn the points and corresponding credits from the activities you do as part of challenges.
Ironman VR
Ironman VR is a key part of Ironman Virtual Club, providing races every weekend so that triathletes around the world can get their fix of competitive racing or great motivation to train hard.
Just like real Ironman racing, results are posted in age groups, so you can compare yourself against other athletes in the global triathlon community.
Check out our What Is Ironman VR guide for all the details on Ironman VR
Ironman VR Pro Challenge
Professional Ironman athletes can also get in on the virtual racing action with four pro men on Saturdays and four pro women on Sundays going head to head over the same race distances as age-groupers.
Thanks to Ironman’s partnership with Rouvy, the bike segments of the pro races, which will take place on the Ironman 70.3 Boulder bike course, will be live-streamed through the Ironman Now page on Facebook Watch.
What’s Rouvy?
Rouvy is Ironman’s partner for Ironman Virtual Racing and uses ‘augmented reality’ to place your video-game cycling avatar on top of real-world videos, the speed of the video changing as the pace goes up or down. Like Zwift, Rouvy features group rides and eRaces – something Ironman VR is sure to be making use of.
As with other similar training apps, you’ll get the most out of Rouvy with a smart trainer that can automatically change resistance as the virtual terrain changes, but you can use it with any power meter or speed sensor-equipped bike.
Rouvy premium subscriptions start at USD $10 per month for a 12-month plan ($11 for six months or $12 for month-on-month) giving access to the app on five devices – including iOS and Android. You’ll also get access to premium routes and can add another two family members to your account free of charge, making Rouvy one of the best-value options out there.
Ironman+
Ironman+ is Ironman VC’s hub of educational materials with videos and articles on all aspects of triathlon including fitness, nutrition, competition, swim, bike and run. It’s designed to help you improve fitness and race preparedness on your Ironman journey.
Ironman VC Coaching
The coaching section of Ironman Virtual Club brings together two digital coaching applications to provide athletes with training programmes and additional support. Here’s how Ironman describes them: –
Ironman Coaching by Final Surge brings together the collective expertise of our global community of Certified Ironman U Coaches to share their hand-created training plans that will help prepare athletes for a phenomenal race day.
The Ironman Training Companion Powered by PKRS.AI gives athletes access to further expertise in training, nutrition and strength; all with the guidance of an online concierge. This experience brings the training expertise of Ironman World Champions Leanda Cave and Jan Frodeno to the palm of your hand.
