Tag: Training

IRONMAN Maryland 2015

Tomorrow begins my training for IRONMAN Maryland. Competing in an IRONMAN has always been a bucket list item for me. I’m pretty sure that this goes back to watching some of the early races on the old Wide World of Sports on ABC. A friend of mine did Louisville two years ago and it made me start thinking that maybe it was time to get this off the bucket list. Last year I took my first step toward making this a reality by competing in IRONMAN Timberman 70.3. It was a great learning experience and I had a lot of fun, so I took the plunge and signed up for Maryland this year.

The last four months I have spent working on building a good base to work with for my actual IRONMAN training plan. I feel like I am in better shape right now than I was at any point last year, which is good, but I still have a long way to go. I’ll be testing my winter work next weekend at the Wrentham Duathlon followed by the Willi Whammer Half Marathon two weeks later.

The other thing that I have been working on is figuring out the nutritional part of this training volume. Unfortunately it does not matter how much information you have, if you do not follow it then things go sideways pretty fast.

Well I guess this is all for now. I will be posting updates along the way on my training.

IRONMAN 70.3 Training …

My transition area.
My transition area.

I started the year laying down a good base to build on for my first IRONMAN 70.3, well actually it will be my first triathlon period at this rate.  I was flying a little too early in the year and decided to back off a little bit so that I wouldn’t get burned out before the actual race got here.  Somehow I lost track of time and fitness before noticing that Timberman was only 8 weeks away.  Not sure how I missed that one, but now I am under the gun and working my ass off to get back to where I was two months ago.  I just finished week two of a four week block and I am starting to feel the legs coming back around.  

Yesterday i did my first dress rehearsal to see where I am and was mostly happy with the results.  It was a test for the bike and run using the nutrition plan that I have for the actual race.  The bike was better than I would have expected.  I was trying to stay around 85% of my FTP for an average.  To my surprise I managed to average 19.7 mph of my 28 miles test loop without exceeding my target effort level.  I never expected to manage that.  I will admit that I really should have drank about a half a water bottle more than I did on the bike.

My transition was 2:15 and I was out for my run.  I ran 7 miles at around a 5.7 mph pace.  I would have liked to be around a 6.3 mph pace, but that was the first time that I have tried running after a ride of that effort.  Although I was not as fast as I would have liked to be, I never felt the desire to slow down any or walk.

Post workout recovery!
Post workout recovery!

I really need to start looking around for a couple of smaller local triathlons to do to get my feet wet soon.  I really would rather not do Timberman as my first triathlon.  Well that’s all for now, off to get a massage.