10/16/07: Training to Date - 19 weeks in review

When I first started this training plan shortly after the 1/2 IM in May, I remember thinking that IMFL seems so far away. The last 5 months went by in the blink of any eye, and Nov 3 is only a short 19 days away :)

Since starting on June 4th, I've trained for 219.38 hours and gone 2002.33 miles

I've swam 72.84 miles, ran 351.69 miles and cycled and unbelievable 1577.80 miles.

Was my training perfect? Absolutely not....

I missed a few swims and other mid-week workouts here and there, and with only one exception hit EVERY SINGLE ONE of my key workouts and all of the milestones along the way, including the 90 something miler in the unbelievable wind a few weeks back. The one exception?

4 flats = no 112 miler :(

Milestones? According to coach extraordinaire Rich Strauss, whose advise I trust implicitly (along with a few others such as Joe Friel), there are three key milestones to hit at least once on the way to ironman:

1. 4k swim - check...did it twice, once in the ocean and once in the pool...
2. 100-112 mile bike - check...I did one century, although would have preferred to hit 112...oh well.....
3. 2.5 - 3 hour run...check...I did one 3 hour run, plus several others in the 2.5 - 3 hour range....

Let's just hope that I got all of my flats out of the way.....

Starting in January 2006, when I began training for the Rock n Roll marathon, it took me a year and a half to build up a good enough base to START training for a full ironman...WOW...IT's so easy to lose track of where you were and how far you've come sometimes. Now that I'm under three weeks to go, all I can do know is hope that everything I've done over the last 19 weeks was enough, and more broadly, over the last 2.5 years was enough.

My training hours peaked at 16 hours, and now they're MASSIVELY reduced for the next few weeks, getting in 11.5 this week, then 8, then just 2-2.5 the week of the race. No more 6 hour rides, three hour runs, 6 hour bricks....no more eating like crap knowing I'll burn it all off anyway....

The next three weeks are to give my body exactly what it needs to recover from all of the training - REALLY good nutrition and lots of rest - and to let my fitness hit it's absolute peak on one specific day: November 3.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....