posted by Lee@Tri*Inspired*Life on Ironman

At the mention of me training for Ironman, someone recently asked me if I was excited.  My answer was “I will be”.  I have actually thought about that question and my answer several times since the discussion.  I don’t think I have been asked that before, so I was not sure how to answer.  Should I be excited at this point?  Well….I don’t know.  Should I be excited about something whose preparation is a big part of my daily thoughts and activities as well as a factor in everyday decisions?  I have never thought about it this way and so I did.

I have always been pretty open that I don’t necessarily love to race.  I do love to train.  Don’t get me wrong….there are lots of days that I want to skip  my session, sleep in or whatever else sounds good at the moment, but the satisfaction I get after my workout, makes it all worth it.  The PROCESS of the training, the growth that happens along the way, the obstacles you overcome, kicking ass on days where you thought it was impossible, is where I find my niche that keeps me in this sport.  Sure, I love having the goal of race day to drive me in my training and to motivate me to do my best, but the ratio of hours spent training to hours spent racing, are tremendously skewed…in my favor, thank goodness.  I certainly have a competitive nature within that comes out during the race, but ultimately, more than anything, I want my race, any race, to be a performance of all the hours and sweat equity invested in the weeks and months leading up to the big day.  If I can deliver my best and, in a way, celebrate the training cycle by putting it all out there, I am happy.

There are definitely athletes out there that get a tremendous rush on race morning and feed off that adrenalin.  Once my race morning is here, the nervous energy that is present is what makes me ready to get on with the show.  The waiting around and the preparation race morning is definitely not my favorite time.  So….back to the original question…”AM I EXCITED ABOUT IRONMAN”?

I am excited about the opportunities, growth and strength (both mental and physical) that training for Ironman will bring.  I am excited about the being ABLE to train and the idea of getting to the starting line healthy and PREPARED to tackle to day.  I am excited about the time that I will get to spend with some like-minded individuals (and all around cool people) that share the same Ironman goal and think that getting up at the crack of dawn to run track intervals or jump in a cold lake is “normal”.

I am excited about racing with these people and being able to see each other during the race to make the day even more special.  I am excited about giving this goal my ALL and making Tony and the rest of my cheerleaders proud when I go for it and ultimately cross that finish line.  In hindsight, I think my gut reaction answer was kind of right….I AM excited but I WILL be even more excited on August 19.

Highlights from the month:

*After the catastrophe from training week #4 when took the Purple Butterfly out for the inaugural ride, I finally was able to get in a successful 46 mile ride during week #5.

It took some intense planning, but we made it work.  Saturdays are when we typically ride and the forecast called for heavy rain MOST of that Saturday.  It was looking very unlikely to get in a ride outside.  While Fridays are typically the rest day, we decided to fit in the ride after work on Friday to be able to get outside.  SUCCESS!!!  (It did rain alot on Saturday!!)

*Hill Repeats – While this is not something I love, I knocked out a good hill repeat session on the treadmill.  I have not done this type of workout in a long time and it was nice to get one done as I know we will have more to come to prepare for MT!

*Getting back to regular track workouts with the team.  Thursdays are track during the season while during the winter we do stair workouts.  These stair workouts are an awesome challenge themselves but the weather delayed our start of track a couple of weeks so we were ready to get these going!

 

*Getting in our first open water swim of the season!  Over the winter I purchased a new wetsuit (sleeved) and with our first tri of the season in just a few weeks, we were ready to get in that first OWS to wash away those cob webs.  It was a bit cooler than I would prefer, but I allowed my “minimum” temp drop a couple of degrees because I had sleeves.  Thank goodness I did, because I was still cold….think the water was probably 65/66 degrees.  I am very sensitive to the cold water, but I needed to get in and do my best.  It was not a great swim, but I was glad to get it done and have a check mark in that box!

*When training schedules line up with some other tri club peeps resulting in a great training group for a solid ride/run session!

Lowlights from the month:

*Week #6 brought in the struggle bus for a couple of my trainer rides.  I had three Trainer Road sessions that week that really kicked my ass.  I gave it all I had and that I can’t ask anything more.  I was glad when I finally got off that bus!

*A flooded greenway totally screwed up my plans for a Friday morning outside ride.  Here’s the story….Tony had Xterra Myrtle Beach on his race calendar.  Our plan was to travel down on Friday afternoon, hang out Saturday and then the race on Sunday.  I knew I needed to shift some things on the training schedule to get in my time.  After much consideration of all the options, I decided that I would push my planned rest day to Sunday (usually Friday), do my long ride Friday morning before we left town and then do my run Saturday morning (easy to fit in out of town).  With a 60 mile ride scheduled, I knew that I needed to get an early start Friday morning and since it is the last day of the work week, I planned to ride by myself on the greenway.  (I don’t usually bike on the greenway, but spend a lot of miles running there.  Since (1). I don’t ride on the road solo, due to safety reasons and (2). My start time would be during early commute hours, the greenway seemed like the best and safest option to get in my ride outside. It would be quiet that time of day and I really didn’t want another long ride on the trainer.)  After mentioning my plan to one of my training partners, she said that she would like to join me as she had a flexible work schedule that day.   Awesome!  We planned to meet at 7:00am and that morning was COLD!  It was around 36 degrees (while the morning prior at track had been in the 60s).  We were bundled up and ready to tackle this, despite the cold.

I had planned out a great route and was looking forward to it.  We got .45 miles in before we were greeted with flooding.  BUMMER!  It was too deep to try to pass on our bikes, so we turned around and decided to head in the opposite direction which did not have the options to easily get in our needed mileage, but we would make it work. After about 2 miles in that direction, we reached more flooding and this was even worse!  WHAT A DOWNER!

We could drive to another entrance point on the greenway passed the flooding, but there was no way of knowing if and where there would be more obstacles.  After pretty quick consideration, we decided to head to my house and put in the time on the trainer.  April could use Tony’s trainer and we would persevere!  Thanks goodness April had decided to meet me for that ride and then agreed to trainer it with me.  We got in 3 hours and 31 minutes together (previous longest time was 3 hours 30 minutes 🙂 ) and having her there to pass the hours made it possible!  #noexcuses  #overcometheobstacles #traineroad

Month #2 Totals:

Swim: 27,959 (15.89 miles)

Bike: 395 miles

Run: 53 miles

Other: 2 strength and 3 yoga sessions (2.25 hours)

Total Time: 47 hours 24 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Ironman, Training