Are You Ready?

Oftentimes my friends, family and colleagues will ask me if I’m ready for my Ironman. Every single time I am asked this question I answer with an emphatic NO. I don’t respond like this to sound funny or glib. It’s just the truth.

How can you ever feel ready for something as big as Ironman? On my longest training day I hope to be able to ride a full 112 and finish off with a short run. A frigging huge day by anyone’s measure…but still not 140.6.

Joel Friel & Gordo Bryn begin their Ironman training book, Going Long, with a quote that really hits home for me: "One is never ready for an ironman-distance race. The event is far too big for that."

Joel and Gordo – I think you are spot on. I will have no clue how my body will behave at the tail end of the marathon, should I be fortunate enough to make it that far. How about nutrition? Will my stomach be able to tolerate anything late in the race? Are my legs actually capable of continuous movement for up to 17 hours? These are questions that I can only answer on race day.

So am I ready? NO. I continue to do my best to prepare my body and mind for July 22. Truth be told, I think the hardest part is just getting to the starting line. Week after week of long hours is both physically and mentally taxing – even more so than I originally believed it would be. I am proud of how far I’ve come and anxiously look forward to my continued improvement.
There are days when I feel high. There are days when I feel low. Each day I feel like I have a shot at completing the Ironman. And each day I feel like I don’t.

All of this measuring…of distance, of time, of pounds. It often has me yearning for simpler days. Days when I used to play catch with my Dad on South Bay Drive. Looking back, those were some of the greatest days of my life. Pretending to be Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Mike Greenwell and Jody Reed all rolled into one. There were no heart rate zones. There were no bike-to-run bricks. There was no LT or VO2 max. Only my Dad and I playing catch.

Ironman helps me appreciate these perfect moments - trapped in my mind never to be forgotten.

Get Outside and Train!

With the weather in the Northeast finally turning a corner...I've finally gotten my ass off my beloved trainer and onto the road! Last week was a really terrific training week. I suppose I'm two weeks behind on logging my hours, so I'll catch you up on that first. Two weeks ago was a very welcome recovery week for me. I really reached a breaking point with indoor training and gladly recouped my body for my final 13 weeks of training. So not too much to report for two weeks ago on the training front. 6 hours and change of very easy workouts, which included a trip to Cleveland for a wedding in addition to a run around all things Cleveland prior to the wedding. Driving from the Philly burbs to Cleveland is pretty simple. Maybe about 3 or 4 exits in total over a 6 hour drive.

Last week was a real gem on the swim, bike and run front.

14:06:07 in total.

There were highlights to be had in all three disciplines.

On Wednesday I rocked a 4500 yard swim broken down as follows:
900,800,700,600,500,400,300,200,100
1 minute rest in between each swim.
1:11:00 in total with rest.
1:03:00 of swimming with no rest.

After 4200 yards (approximate IM distance), I had been swimming (sans rest intervals) for roughly 59 minutes. Overall, the 4500 swim was a great confidence booster. My endurance is starting to feel really dialed in when I'm spending time in the pool. With all that said, this journey is not about posting a blazing swim time. If it was I'd work my tail off to post some type of sub-60 swim in Mirror Lake. However, that's just not what this journey is all about. Truth be told, I really just want my swim to feel like my bike warm-up. If I exit Mirror Lake in 80 minutes, I'll be fine with it. My general feeling on an Ironman swim is that you shouldn't flip out about it unless you fall in one of two buckets:
1. You are shooting for a Kona Spot
2. You believe you will be close to the 2:20 Ironman swim cutoff based on your training

Luckily I don't fall into either of these buckets, so I don't fret too much about the swim. 65 minutes, 70 minutes, 80 minutes. They all seem like the same thing if I'm going to be out on the course for up to 17 hours.

Anyhow...enough about swimming. I also had a pretty sweet run on Thursday. I had the good fortune of having a day off of work on Thursday, which allowed me to go get my annual physical. FYI...my ticker is functioning fine if you had any concerns based on my fainting episode which I touched on in a prior post. I had an EKG done as a precautionary measure and the results came back completely normal. As a side note, the doc was also impressed with my weight loss. 24 pounds and counting! Following my physical I hit the road for a 12 mile run. It turned into a really kick ass effort.

Total time for the 12 miler was 1:42:01. Final ten miles were done in 1:23:45 (which would be my stand alone ten mile PR). I think my running has come a long way in the last year. Certainly better than my 1:59 at the Philly Distance Run (Half Marathon distance). That said, losing an additional 15 pounds would continue to make life easier for me out on the roads.

Saturday was my first bike ride outside this year. 53.5 miles. About 16.8 mph, which wasn't bad considering the bike and pedestrian traffic on the route I was riding. I will say that I think I didn't ride hard enough on my trainer this winter. After 3 hours on the bike I felt much more toasted than I would after 3 hours on the trainer. I did enjoy getting back on my aerobars and having to actually work on things like balance. Riding on a trainer kind of seems like learning how to walk without being constrained by the laws of gravity. I topped off the ride with a 4 mile brick run. It took about 2 miles to feel like I had run legs.

Sunday was another brick day. About 28 miles of relatively easy riding...followed by a 6 mile run...followed by a 1500 yard cool down in the pool.

The reward for the end of the week was a gourmet sushi dinner prepared by Silvia's Mom. She is an unbelievable cook and I feel so fortunate to be at the dinner table any time she is in the kitchen!

14:06:07. Not bad for a dude who couldn't run for 5 minutes only 2 years ago.

Thanks very much for reading.

Threads

Should I be fortunate enough to cross the finish line on July 22...this will be my first non-M-dot 140.6 purchase.

I've had some really spectacular workouts over the past few days...but more on that in my next post...

To My Better Half

Happy Birthday Silvia!

You make every swim, bike and run so much better knowing that I come home to you when I'm done!

I love you dearly.

Monster Weekend

When I started this journey of Ironman, I knew there would be weekends like this. You hope and plead that you can make it through unscathed, but you won’t know what it’ll really be like until you’re on the other side. Pray for Monday to arrive!

This past weekend was an absolute monster training weekend. I put in a massive ten hours over the two day period, which included nine hours on the bike.

Like I said, an absolute monster training weekend!

Four hour ride on Saturday and a five hour ride on Sunday followed by a one hour run. Six hour Sunday brick?! As the philosopher Stefani once said, “this @#!% is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.” It felt pretty amazing to run for an hour following the five hour ride. Although I wasn’t breaking any land speed records, I wasn’t going hideously slow either. The closest reference I can make was that the hour run felt about how I felt after around 20ish miles in the Philadelphia Marathon. Not horrendous, but not particularly fresh either. Just a bit heavy all around. For the time being…I’ll take it. Have you ever had a Coca-Cola following a really really long workout? Best. Coke. Ever.

The week rounded out at 14 hours total. Not bad considering Monday was a scheduled rest day and Tuesday was a wash as I had to travel to NYC for work. 14 hours in 5 days isn’t too shabby.

Thanks for reading and happy training.

I'm bikeless!

Last week was an awesome training week for me.

14 hours in total, of which 7.5 hours were done on Saturday and Sunday.

Some highlights for the week included a 4.5 hour trainer ride on Saturday and a 4200 yard swim workout on Sunday.

I'm bikeless for at least the majority of this week as Cookie Monster is in the shop getting tuned and ready to be ridden outdoors. After working my way up to 270 minutes of indoor riding, I have to say that I absolutely can not wait to get outside!

Not a whole heck of a lot other than that to report. I am really pleased with my progress thus far. Hopefully my bike endurance continues to grow in the coming weeks. I really need to start going on some long outdoor rides to test my nutrition strategies that I've been trying to perfect within the confines of my living room on my trainer.

On the weight loss front, I'm rocking and rolling with that as well. Down 23 pounds in the last 12 months. Still hoping to drop between 10-15 additional pounds before Ironman Lake Placid.

Happy and healthy. For a simple guy with a beautiful wife and a lovingly supportive family...I can't ask for much more.

Thanks again for reading.