Ebb and Flow

Its hard to believe that Florida is my first Ironman race but the second I have peaked for. A year ago in 2005 I was base building for Ironman Arizona (April) 2006 with four buddies. We had a training schedule and as we got within 20 weeks of the race we all got very dialed in and serious about a plan from Beginning Triathlete. It was a good plan and it obviously worked since everyone finished the race.

This time for Ironman Florida, I started on the BT plan but after a month or so my own training philosophy's took over and using my past experiences plus listening to coaches and team mates I stopped looking at BT and started creating my own program. I used Training Peaks to create volume schedules.

Next April (2007) I have my second Ironman, Arizona, which will be my third straight Ironman training cycle in a row. What will I do differently? Well obviously my first training cycle went untested and my second training cycle will be unproven until November 4th, so this might be premature.

I had great improvements in my swimming this summer. While I pool trained last winter prior to IMAZ I feel that I made little if any gains. This winter I will probably hire a swim coach and focus exclusively on drill sets, something I have completely ignored since March favoring long open water swims instead. If I can find a small Masters group that can give me good feedback then I will possibly go that route. So far I have been completely outswam and overlooked when attempting to try Master's or Tri swim programs.

I am going to continue my cycling plan. I had some very good improvement in cycling this time around. Much of this I believe can be attributed to a kick ass bike sponsor, Valdora, which provided me with a awesome kit but I also dropped the volume of my long rides. My mileage is comparible each week between Arizona's plan and Florida's plan but I did more actualride workouts for Florida. Instead of 80 mile rides every weekend we did shorter rides and then a run. This is something I will continue to do. I will not ride the actual IM course so often. Earlier this year we rode the course every weekend for three months. By race day my team mates were completely prepared but sick of the same tired view. This time around we will ride other courses and again ride less and run more.

I haven't done run speed work in a long time but I will this winter. I know that I have in me a standing marathon pace that is mid 8's. I also know that I can only train myself to do that pace when I have a pacer over several workouts that allow me to 'reset my pace clock'. So its to the track this winter for sprint work and out the door for 5k intervals along with my weekly 10-15 mile long distance run.

I do actually think that somewhere inside me is a 175 pound triathlete. Its been harder than I thought to transform this former weight room physique to a lithe triathlete form. At my current weight its all a matter of nutrition during the holiday season and consistant training program. My nutriton for Florida training was good until my finally peak training time where I just couldn't eat enough to fuel my 8,000 calorie expenditure days. So I resorted to fast food and often times days with not enough food and my body hoarded fat and burned up muscle. I have all the technical knowledge inside me to be better at this and my nutrition will take greater priority between now and April.

I had a bad patch of leg injury's during both Arizona and Florida training which shows I need better recovery and stretching programs. I learned nothing so far. I am going to hire a trainer to stretch me out once week and stick to a better routine on my own. If I can get through a training cycle without leg injury I think I can seriously improve my times.

My heart right now is totally focused on the next few weeks leading up to Florida. Afterwards, Lord willing I will have a fast physical recovery because I have lots of goals; short term, long term and incredibly cool stuff coming up.