Ironman Starts Today

Today is the first official day of my training plan for the Beach to Battleship ironman distance triathlon. In 31 weeks from this past Saturday, I will be racing my second iron distance race. Unlike last year’s race season of 17 races (including 3 sub 1:30 half marathons, an Ultra Marathon, half ironman, a sub 12hr Ironman, and much more) this race will be the only thing I’m focusing my training on for 2011. I have created this new blog to log my progress towards knocking around 1:30 off my finish time. This is a bit huge to say the least. In just one season, I’ve learned that training in all three sports is very far from what it takes to “racing” a successful Ironman distance triathlon and I hope to share those things here. This race is also special because of the group of friends I’m doing it with (all the way from first timers to Hawaii finishers). I have more to learn from them than I could ever share here. I’m very fortunate to friends and family who support these things I want to do. Unlike the 22-24 hr training weeks last year, I will be training about 35-40% fewer hours and not out wasting miles and unnecessary energy. Every workout this year will have a specific purpose and every min of those workouts will be accounted for with specific goals. Without my friend's and family’s support, I could not do this. Therefore, my biggest goal for Ironman is to not let the training interfere with my family and friends as it may have last year. I’m also fortunate to have a great career at Vanderbilt where the people I work with support my obsession. Without the flexibility they offer, training would become harder to manage. One of my other goals is to not take advantage of this flexibility. I’d be lying if at the end of the day I didn’t admit this race is only a stepping stone to a much bigger goal. One day, I will qualify for Hawaii. I intend on doing this in 2012. There, it’s out there, now I have to do it. As of today, I feel like I could race Ironman next weekend. Seriously. I took this past Dec and Jan completely off and spent Feb and March getting endurance back. Right now, I’m already stronger and about 5 pounds leaner than I was on Ironman race day last year. Going forward, my post probably won’t be as serious as this one; I just wanted to acknowledge my commitment to family and friends, work, and then finally an epic ironman race. Last year, I finished Ironman and said, “That wasn’t hard at all”. This year, I will RACE the ironman distance without an ounce of anything left in my body.