Plan C

We are fortunate to live somewhere that no matter the time of year you can train outdoors. Yes, even in the summer (get up early - or in our case have nice light systems for night training). However, in the rare case that Plan A and Plan B fails, you always have to have that Plan C in your back pocket so your training can stay on track.

Plan A - Train outdoors on the many roads, trails, and lakes that we have:

Where we swim (Butcher Jones Cove)

A few of the MANY places we ride

And many beautiful places to run:

Plan B - Train at gyms, pools, at night with headlamps and bike lights.

Plan C - Josh and I are not afraid of a little rain, in fact running in the rain is alot of fun, biking 4-6 hours in the rain can be trying especially when you have a 3 hour run or long swim lined up in the schedule as well. OR if you get home VERY late and need to get a HILL run in and can't get back up to the trails. Well, then that's where Plan C comes to the rescue:

Home setup:

Treadmill: Great for late night hill repeats, always a last resort though.

Computrainer: OK cannot say this is a last resort as it has REAL added training benefit. This is your typical bike trainer, but comes with computer software to provide resistance to the trainer to mimic actual bike courses. Of course we have the Ironman St George course, along with the real course video. It's taken over our office/ dining room for now. But eventually we'll integrate it into our "gym."

http://www.racermateinc.com/computrainer.asp

Riding the computrainer is not so bad. You can view your power output, MPH, spin scan analysis, profile and the course on the computer on the right, and watch TV, DVD's, play XBox, etc on the Monitor in the middle. HECK whatever it takes to make it FUN! :p We are MAJOR dorks, we know.

Today...it's raining...and it's windy. Not a good combo for a 5 hour bike. Sounds like a Plan C day.

“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak” - Thomas Carlyle

Tandem

It is said about a tandem bike that the wherever the relationship between the two riders is going it is bound to get there faster. I have beyond a doubt found the same thing to be true of training for Ironman.

Good days become the best of days and bad days become the worst of days. When doing this with a partner those extremes become part of your relationship. Luckily for me Jen and I are there for each other when times are bad and we can be elated together when times are good. I am quickly realizing this journey is not about the destination but the journey itself and I am having a blast.

There are many instances where it is not easy, we don't have an Iron-spouse or an Iron-maid or whatever and that results in two very tired individuals trying to maintain a tough career and make sure the house doesn't collapse or become overrun with laundry, dishes and dog hair.

In the end it is worth it, our tandem is headed in the right direction and we have our heads down pedaling our asses off.

This is it - Don't get scared now

Don’t stress over how hard it’s going to be.
You will suffer, you know that.

The above quote was taken from a forum on Ironman St. George, people are starting to argue and freak out over the overall course difficulty. From the bike to the run, its a hilly mofo. Things like this induce fear and panic in people. And I would be lying if I did not tell you that yes, I feel fear. Fear is healthy. Fear is needed, fear lets you know you are alive - right? But I do not feel fear in the paralyzing sense that people think of fear meaning. Take for instance today's long ride.

Our training plan slated a 4+ hour ride and since IMSG is nothing but hills, hills, hills, we are training this way. We chose to ride a local route called "EOP" or "End of Pavement" where the pavement literally ends past Canyon Lake. I now know its just so dang steep back there that who in their right mind would pave it anyway? ;) But its known for its challenging, steep, relentless climbing. PERFECT! So Josh and I planned the ride Saturday. This morning, Josh asked if I was nervous about the ride, as I was being uncharacteristically quiet. 'OF COURSE I am nervous, I am scared to do it, to put myself out there, suffer for hours...but this is what we must do. Face the things we are scared of head on." For when we do this, we learn we are capable of so much more than we thought. I mean I am looking to ride 112 miles in the middle of a 2.4 mile swim and 26.2 mile run. How can I be afraid of a 60 mile ride? Let's do it!

The ride was, of course a challenge, everything we set out to do lately is pushing our limits - fatiguing our bodies so that we can build new muscle, new endurance, new mental capacity to handle the pain, fatigue and endless hours and miles. But most of all - it was fun, and it was beautiful and it was yet another day I got to live my life doing what I love - what's so scary about that? Absolutely nothing!

~Jen


Josh and I overlooking Canyon Lake

Glamour

Fact: Not all workouts are glamorous, especially when training for an Ironman. First you must be asking yourself what is a "glamorous" workout. To me it is one where one of 3 things happen.

1. You visit or discover a beautiful place.
2. You push your body to its physical limits.
3. You train with no pain.

I feel lucky that for me I am able to accomplish the goals above to make most of my workouts glamorous. Case in point trail running at Usery.
It is beautiful:
Running on the "soft" surface rarely leaves me in pain.
Very often though during training we have those workouts that just don't fit that bill. Thankfully I am becoming ok with that. 1 hour on the trainer in heart rate zone 2 certainly does not fit any of the billing above. Then what is the point? It helps mentally: being on a bike trainer for an hour straight staring at a wall or some mundane TV show is the epitome of being bored. A bike is made for travel and adventure. There are times though during an Ironman distance race that takes well over 10 hours that it is going to be boring. This is training me for that. It helps aerobically: during a long race you have to learn to pace yourself. What feels easy, what feels hard? In order to intimately learn that you must fully experience all levels of exertion. So it is not glamorous and it isn't really fun to be honest, but it is needed and I accept and understand you boring training.
~ Josh

Tiredness and Hunger.

Now that Ironman training is in full swing it is amazing to see how much the body changes its needs and wants. The same diet that I was having 2 weeks ago feels like barely enough to sustain sitting at work all day, much less the workouts that follow. On top of that every day needs a nap or at least 8 hours of sleep at night.

So the question becomes how to deal with this. For now we have started to gradually up the calories at meal time by adding some side of carbs (pasta, rice, etc.) Yes it throws off our typical 40-30-30 ratio but you must replenish what the body is using and right now that is carbs.

The tiredness is another matter entirely. It has already become difficult to motivate oneself to perform even the most routine daily tasks, cooking, grocery shopping and cleaning have slowly been slipping down the priority scale.

The beautiful thing is that I can see in the near future a balance is coming. Managing a more than full time job, Ironman training, and everyday life. It is a challenge and I am loving every minute of it. There is nothing like pushing yourself to the limit to gain the knowledge of what is possible.

~ Josh