The Ironman Experiment: Life After Ironman

It goes on, yes it does. And suddenly everything that was in the peripheral for so long is right in front of you. It's hard to refocus and find new goals, nothing seems as big or as important (training wise) as an IM. And believe me, it's easy to take a nice long off-season and think about it only when you realize how out of shape you have gotten!

I give Crossfit Endurance a lot of credit for getting me back in the game right away. Sure I took it real easy for a few days, but physically my body was ready and recovered merely days after IMCDA. Mentally I was not ready. But I still found myself in "The Lab" (our garage gym) going through recovery WODs. My body needed the movement, and it helped me not feel so useless, and without purpose. ;) However, this week, 2 weeks post IM mojo is completely back and I am training full force.

You see, CFE taught me about potential. People like me who had done sport merely for the fun, social aspect and never really cared about anything other than finishing now feels like I may actually have some athletic potential. Sure, I'm in my late 20's, I've never played sports, and am proud to have done as much as I have. But I never cared to be any good. Training with CFE showed me that despite my usual attitude "I'm not a runner, I am not genetically disposed to be any good at anything, I'm always going to be middle of the pack" I really had no idea what I could and CAN be.

Doing IMCDA on 13 weeks of CFE training merely scratched the surface. And the fact that I was able to accomplish almost every single goal I had set out to do (just shy of that 2 hour stretch PR) lit the fire in me to work even harder. Sure a 14 hour Ironman finisher is no big deal to most, but for someone like me it's just close enough to keep me going. Well if a 16 hour Ironman could be a 14 with hard work is 12 that impossible? (Stay tuned for IMAZ 2012) What more could a person ask for but to have goals, and have the TOOLS to unlock potential.

Many people have asked post IMCDA if I credit that race to my CFE training. ABSOLUTELY. In that case, what did I do:

- Starting in March I began following the Crossfit Endurance main site for a few weeks just to figure out if this was how I wanted to tackle IM #2. I had been training at a great local box Crossfit Leiftime Fitnessall summer for Crossfit and knew I truly suffered in my first IM (Ironman St George) due to lack of STRENGTH. I wanted to add CF to my endurance training, but knew I could not do it unless the programming was specified for endurance and complimentary to my IM training, not detrimental.
- I found a coach to provide me specific programming, although the CFE site will d just that, I didn't want ton have to think and do my own programming since I was new to it.
- My coach sent me weekly programs consisting of: 2x2x2 swim bike run workouts a week (6 total) and 4 Crossift/ strength WOD's.
- All workouts (save for a few) were all out efforts, & time trials. Shorter, higher intensity (see other blog posts for sample weeks). I still had an 80 mile stamina ride on my plan and ran up to 13 miles (in a typical build fashion). The longest swim was upwards of 1500 straight. Midweek endurance was high intensity intervals (think 400, 800, 5k, 10k time trials) and same for bike and run.
- CFE requires 3 hours between workouts, on days where there were two workouts I would do my Crossfit at lunch and sbr in the evenings.
- It was exhausting. On days that I had done a WOD, or heavy lift I may have a 10k to run in the evening. It was not easy.
- People see low volume and think easier. Not at all. I have trained in traditional manner. In CFE there are no off or recovery days. Every time I trained was hard, focused, strong efforts. It was good for me mentally. But there were days I yearned for a nice long run where I was just cruising along. Or a bike ride with friends.

Results
- 2 hour PR speaks for itself
- I LOVED my training, enough that I'm right back at it. Signing up for another IM and using this training for an upcoming marathon (Tucson in Dec) and sprint Tri in Oct (let's see if I can try and go FAST for a change).
- I feel like I am starting over in this sport. I've been screwing around and wasting my time, it's almost as I'd MCDA was my first race ever and I'm just getting this all figured out.
- I was mentally prepared. An Ironman you will suffer. CFE training takes you to places of suffering, and serves up a nice dose of HTFU.

What now?
I officially start training for SHEROX San Diego. I am racing it as part of Team Hope.

Since so many of you helped me raise SO MUCH for The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund for MCDA I am going to continue on my quest to race with goals and for purpose. As a part of Team Hope I will race for the OCRF Team, raising funds and awareness. SHEROX in San Diego is affiliated with the fund and I want to show my support at the race. It will be fun to change up my training for short and fast, and horribly painful. Ugh, I hate short and fast!

So Josh and I are training, daily. Still using CFE main site. Mountain biking and having fun with it until I need to get serious. Our most recent Lab purchase was a set of rings(we've got quite a wish list). I've got all kinds of Crossfit goals (that's another post) that I want to accomplish this year. Most of all, rings are fun! I feel like a little kid again having them, but the movements are kicking my butt!

Speaking of fun - pull up competition with Elliot (who won? *wink*)