Week 1 - 29 weeks to go!

Well, here is what week 1 looks like when it's all said and done. The week is Monday thru Sunday (the weekend includes Sunday, after all right!?).

Base phase of Be Iron Fit actually only calls for 2 swim sessions a week and only a 60 min bike ride on Sunday, but swimming is kinda nice and there's no way I can convince my Dad to only go for a 1 hour bike ride on the weekend. What sucks most is that I forgot my Garmin on Sunday's ride. :(

I would say that, so far, things are going really well. I feel pretty good, and I have a mentality that no workout is negotiable. I don't even let myself try to talk myself out of a workout. Workouts come first before grocery shopping, dinner plans, or whatever other chores there may be.

Not much else to report other than I got some new shoes! Now I have two pairs of Altra Provisioness that I will rotate throughout the weeks, I heard somewhere that's what the cool runner types do...

Week 1 Jitters

Today is Friday, and I sit here realizing I only have two days until I officially start my training on Monday. I don't know what it is, but a week ago I was ready to start right then, but now that it's really going to start, I feel almost unmotivated. Don't take it the wrong way though, just because I 'feel' unmotivated right now, doesn't mean that in two days I'll just say, 'forget it', and sleep in and do no training.

I wonder if the Baker 2 Vegas Relay had anything to do with it. When it was over, my legs were pretty tired, so it was nice to have a few days off. But then again, I went to the pool at 6am on that Monday and felt great. But, I had it in my mind that I should really take this last week off so I managed to do no other workouts after Monday. So, here I sit on Friday.. just wondering if I made the mistake of letting my momentum disintegrate.

Sunday I am going to a Meetup group for ocean swimmers so I can practice my wetsuit swimming. I find my body gets so damn tired when I swim in a wetsuit. With the person there to give tips about swimming, I am also hoping he will be able to give me some tips on whether I have the wrong size suit, or if I just don't put it on correctly.

I hope Sunday's swim makes me feel more motivated to start this 30 week journey.

Data Collecting

Maybe some wise-man out there once said, "Nothing is worth doing without data." And maybe he was right. I fully concur though, I LOVE DATA. So I thought today I could talk a little bit about the most important feature for me on my Garmin 910xt is the heartrate monitor.

If you don't know much about the Garmin line of products, the 910xt is a GPS watch made for triathlon in mind. It is waterproof and allows you to pick 4 different sports (Swim, Bike, Run, Multisport).

Anyhow, back to heartrate. It's been a bit of trial and error with me, but I've been using heartrate training for my running consistently for about 5 months now. I started using it for the Disney Half Marathon after the run-walk-run Galloway method did not work for me. I think running too fast just killed my leg.

In December 2012, my Zone 2 running was approximately at 13:30 min/mile pace.

Currently, April 2013, my Zone 2 running is approximately at 12:15 min/mile pace.

In about 4-5 months, I have knocked 1:15 mins off my mile pace, presumably at the same exact effort over the course of those 5 months! I think that heartrate training has proven to be extremely useful and I am glad that my Ironman training plan is based on heartrate zones.

For races, I turn off the heartrate alerts on my Garmin and just run with 'perceived effort', going how fast I want to go. Which has turned me into a 10 min/mile in a 10k (65 degs F), but just recently I ran 7.5 miles in 82 degs F at 10:18 min/miles. I am pretty sure I could crush my 10k time in the cooler temperatures now.

Week 0 - Before the madness begins

It's week zero. Or rather -0.5 if we're being technical. I start my Ironman training in 12 days. This is really just to document this event, and if you are reading and want to play along, that's cool too. I hope to post at least once a week, maybe more. And I also hope to not write huge posts that are just too long to keep up with.

The Plan: Be Iron Fit by Don Fink -- Competitive Program
This book lays it out pretty easy, 10 weeks Base Phase, 10 weeks Build Phase, 10 weeks Peak Phase. It starts at 6 hours/wk and will peak at 20 hours/wk, when it will cut back and it's then time to race! I know it's called the "competitive program", but as you'll see by my race times below, I ain't winnin' no races any time soon. I just want to be well prepared and finish in time!

Past Races (Where I'm Comin' From)
Hansen Dam Sprint Tri 2009 - 2:13:31
Bonelli Park Turkey Tri 2009 - something horrible, we don't talk about it.
Hansen Dam Sprint Tri 2010 - 1:46:24
Disney Half Marathon - 2:55:23
Griffith Park Rocks 10k - 1:02:00
Lake Havasu Sprint Tri 2013 - DNF
Bonelli Park Sprint Tri 2013 - 1:51:48

Ironman Race:
Ironman Arizona
Location: Tempe
Date: November 17th, 2013