What seperates 9hrs and 16hrs at Kona?

you hear a LOT about these type of people?  I think this would be a very rare situation, but maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe they won't get to break 9 hours but I would think if anyone trains 20-30 hours they're getting sub 11 or 10 fairly easily

I'm assuming youre talking about Goggins....and I would have to say the type of training. 

He is historically and Ultra athlete.  An insane one for that matter....His most recent (Jan 17).  The H.U.R.T. 100 ultra - 21 hours and change 4th place.  Until this year only 2 people had gone sub 24 hrs.

The guys putting in 9 and under are pro triathletes....Iron-athletes. This is what they train for and every minute detail matters when you're starring at the pace car most of the race.

It's comparing Apples to Skyscrapers....

Oh and here's an article about Goggins after IMWC...

When you talk hours there is big difference between when I do a 20 hour week and then Bryan or Brikie do a 20 hour week. 

 Even people on Biggest Loser will train 20 hours a week.

 Sometimes less is more A friend of mine just won a 72 hour race for the women division and 2nd overall and she trains about 50 miles a week. She  avg 73 miles a day for 3 days straight. 

Compared to the 100 mile runs and 24 hour events that Goggins has done, IM is a cake walk. There have been several pro IM atheletes who have dabbled in the ultra running world and all of them have said that doing a IM in 8-9 hours is a whole lot easier that running 100 miles in 22 hours or less.

ONE WORD: BASE

These people have been at it for years, and they have such a huge base!  I did Ironman 3 years ago, and worked my butt off.  This past year I worked less, stressed less, and finished faster!

A lot depends on what you're doing for your 20 hrs of training per week.  There are not many people who train regularily over 20hrs per week, unless they do it full time.   Even fewer are actually training well for those 20hrs.  My wife won an Ironman on ~20hrs per week.  I've gone sub 9:00 (Arizona, not Hawaii) on similar training volume.  We train like we race and work full time (until tomorrow, anyway) as well.  It's just about consistency and making your training feel like race day (most of the time anyway)- 3 years of 20hr weeks adds up.

If someone says they put in 20-30 hours of training per week on a regular basis (over more than just a few months) and they don't see a time of around 10 hours I would bet they are exagerating the weekly training volume in a big big way.  Either that or they include all their stretching and shower time in the training as well.  But, if all the training is legit then I would bet it has something to do with either lack of nutrition or lack of mental strength.

Or they simply enjoy the training and enjoy the racing and don't really care what kind of time they finish in.  Nothing wrong with that either.

Someone above definitely hit the nail on the head with Sindballe and Lieto.  They go for the win.  When it comes to Hawaii I think they run into difficulties with the heat more than anything else.  Big guys soak up the heat like crazy.