Pre-Season Ironman Training

At the age of 43...or at least in 18 days I'll be 43...I'm training and going to participate in the 2019 Arizona Ironman.

For people that know me, probably not surprise but the more I do to get ready for my real training season, the more I am nervous about doing this.

The advantage about telling people about a huge goal that you're doing is, the accountability and constant reminder.  Whether people want to see you fail, or they want to be proud of you, or maybe even talk to others about your accomplishment...the accountability is part of the motivating fuel to stay consistent and pushing yourself through each work out.

I won't get into a serious training schedule until 12 weeks out from my event, which will put me around July sometime, but for right now I've been doing a pretty good mixture of weight training, stretch lifting, spin bike, hiking, and running.

And of all things, I can't swim as often as I would like.  Kemmerer's school pool had a rupture, leaving a cavity below the pool where a small leak eroded soil and left the district with a huge head ache.  So what started as a 30-60 day project has turned into a 12 month nightmare.  I'm complaining about my training while the entire community is suffering; high school and jr. high swim teams, USA/AAU swim teams, elementary school swim lessons, community members pool time and some peoples employment.

Of course, my world is the one that I see and feel...right now I try to swim anytime and can.  If I have the right days off, I travel to Lyman or Evanston.  If I have a few days off, and I'm in Utah or Arizona...I find a pool. It's not enough to get a solid rhythm with technique, but pool time is pool time and necessary to finish a 2.4 mile swim.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my preseason training, and have individual sessions I'm really happy about.  I've lost positive weight, almost 3 inches to my waist, and sleeping much better.  My calorie consumption has good and bad days.  When it's good, I'm eat around 200 gm of carbs a day, trying to get my weight down to 185 lbs.  (Lighter the better for a 140 mile race)  I usually will have eggs for breakfast and sometimes it's with a piece of toast, water or maybe zero calorie drink. When I can do it I'll have a zero carb lunch with fried veggies and link sausage or meatballs.  If I'm rushing around my default is a frozen burrito...and I would laugh if I heard someone who is doing what I am doing supplement that as a last resort lunch.  I need to find better options and premake some meals and snacks.

So far in pre-season training I've been happy with a few runs, few swims and even a few spin bike sessions.  I find that I have a certain type of workout for me to be satisfied.  First, I have to complete the workout that I set for myself.  If I'm going to set a goal to run for 60 mins and feel like stopping after 30 and switch to wt training to fill the extra time, I'm really disappointed in myself.

So the first pillar of my workout is to complete what I set out to do.

The second pillar is to either have a physical or mental workout...if I don't feel the burn or numbness of a physical work out I know that wall will be taller the next time I approach it.  If I don't push through the mental wall of a workout, again...it will be tall the next time I approach it. 

For example, today I went to the fire station to work out on the treadmill.  When I jumped on I had no idea how long or how hard I wanted to go.  My pride won't let me do anything less than 30 minutes so I knew that I was committed that far.  BUT, this was the first time  since I've started training that I honestly wanted to stop and just have a rest day and I was only .8 miles into my run...so maybe 6 1/2 minutes.

That was the first mental challenge I had to deal with and attacking these mental and physical challenges are really what an Ironman is all about.  Perhaps and now that I'm typing it out...mentally is what it's all about.

When I got to about 25 minutes I decided to go for 10 miles, the pace felt good, my legs were stretching well and I had plenty of fluid in front of me.  The next challenge I faced was around 40 minutes...approximately 5 miles into the run I was dealing with calorie issues...the only thing I had since waking up was a protein bar...that is more of a candy bar in a costume.   I had the treadmill set at 7.5 miles per min and other than having a normal reaction to a power bar, I felt pretty good.

After my little "break" I jumped back on and felt good for another 25 mins and started to feel both the physical and mental demons telling me to stop.  If I wasn't on a treadmill, I would have either slowed or stopped all together.  But increased my fluids and pushed through it.

So much of Ironman training is pushing through these walls knowing that there is a cloud after the wall.  Some people call it a zone, or a high...it's a place where you feel terrific and the pace is high enough that you feel power in your acceleration.  It's not that you are sustaining your pace, but that you are increasing effort while feeling less pain or feel like you are using less energy.

I can honestly say I didn't find that place after my 65th min of this run, but I pushed through for 90+ minutes and finished 11 miles.  I felt accomplished, challenged, and optimistic about fewer walls for my next 90 minute run

My goal is to have zero walls for 13 miles by mid April.  I would like to run home from work starting in April/May and that's around 15 miles with a few monster hills.

We'll see what happens.