Traveling and Training

One of the most difficult parts of training to become an ironman in my job is the travel. I find I will travel about 13 days out 20 plus work days in the month. I typically will still workout early in the morning at 3:30 to get my uninterrupted workout in. This week I am traveling North Florida to conduct UPS summer planning meetings with all of my operations team. This morning I woke up in Gainesville, Florida and went for a 7 mile run on the Florida campus. It was a good run. Nice 1 mile warm up and a good 5 mile tempo run followed by a 1 mile cool down. It has been strange this week with no training plans. I don't officially start my Ironman plan until June. To follow my daily plan link here http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/index-weekly.asp?memberid=165269&year=&month=&day==

Today I begin my training to my first Ironman. This morning I woke up and went for a 10.5 mile run. The run felt good although the temps and humidity in Florida are climbing. This is not all a bad thing for my training. The race in NC is in November and I will gain a big advantage training in the heat and humidity vs the cool temps of November in Wilmington, NC. I came home and took a shower and put on my compression socks and went to breakfast with Sandy.

My Journey to become an Ironman

In June of 2009 I decided to get off the couch and get back into shape. This is a journey I have done more times than I like to count. Turning 50 on April 5, 2010, I decided I would complete an Ironman Triathlon. I weighed 260 pounds and was feeling really lousy. I was tired all of the time and didn't seem to have any energy. So I got up off the couch and started moving. As I stated above this is a journey I have taken several times in my adult life. I knew this time it would have to be different. I could not continue on a course with such wide swings in effort. I made a vow that I would not quit this time.
I set out doing a run and walk combination the last week of June 09 at my youngest daughter Katie's urging. At first it was more walk then run. I stayed determined and concentrated more on time exercising not pace or mileage. By the second week of July 09 I realized how much I really enjoyed running and biking again. I have done many short and Olympic distance triathlons dating back to the late 1980's. One of my first triathlons in 1987 was against a young kid from Plano, Texas named Lance Armstrong!

In addition to working out, I also started tracking what I was eating. I tried to stay around 1800 calories for the first 6 months of my journey to become an Ironman. I quickly found that through working out and better eating habits I started to see a change in how I looked and my energy level. I began adding bicycling to my running workouts on alternate days. It was at that point I decided to sign up and do an Ironman competition during the year I turned 50.
For those that are wondering what an ironman competition is 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a full 26.1 marathon. All back to back and all in one day. The average finisher in an ironman is around 12-14 hours. A lofty goal for a guy who based on BMI was about 80 pounds overweight. I looked at available Ironman competitions toward the end of 2010 and came up with the Beach to Battleship Ironman competition in Wilmington, NC on November 13, 2010. I picked this race as my first Ironman due to the fast swim, flat roads and cool temperatures. This would be the perfect race given these conditions.

I knew I would not be able to jump off the couch and complete an Ironman. So after I decided on the race, I set up some other races leading up to this race and I joined a forum of triathletes called Beginner Triathlete.com

This turned out to be a great decision. This site is great for beginner triathletes and seasoned triathletes. There are several categories of forums you can read and post on a multitude of triathlon topics. It allows you to post inspirations to friends you have met on the site, set up races you have chosen, and most importantly for me is download your workout plan and execution on a daily basis. It tracks your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. It is a great one stop shop for all things triathlon. It also turned out to be a great place to meet other triathletes in the area. I have made some great friendships on the site and have worked out and raced with several people I met here.

Now that I had the will and determination to complete an ironman I needed a plan. I bought a 26 week workout plan for half ironman distance races in December 2009. The plan was based on three phases - build endurance, build speed, and taper. The plan consisted of workout times in the swim, run, and bike portion of the sport that ranged around a total of 12-14 hours per week. Monday through Friday was mostly around 1-2 hours per day and the weekend jumped to 3-6 hours per day.

Below is a sample of the workout week I completed leading up to the Disney 70.3 Half Ironman Competition:

Sun - 3 hr and 50 minute bike 70.40 miles

Monday off

Tuesday 1 hr swim of 2150 yards and 1 hr run of 7.13 miles

Wednesday 1 hr and 40 minute bike of 30.10 miles

Thursday 55 minute run of 6.0 miles

Friday 1 hour and 1 minute 2600 yard swim and a 48 minute 5.62 mile run

Saturday 3 hr and 41 minute bike of 58.29 hours

Total for the week was 4750 yards swimming at 1 hour and 52 minutes

158.79 miles on the bike at 9 hours and 12 minutes

18.75 miles running at 2 hours and 44 minutes.

Total time this week working out was 13 hours and 45 minutes.

My first major one was the Orlando Half Marathon in December 2009. My goal was to complete the race in under 2 hours. I fell a little short and came in at 2 hours 1 minute and 8 seconds. I was elated to finish so the fact I missed the goal was secondary to me.

My second major race was just completed on May 16th the Disney 70.3 Half Ironman. It was a great race. 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run. Read about the race here: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=209197