Louisville IM 2007

My second IM this year will be the inaugural Louisville Ironman on August 26th. My first was the in Arizona earlier this year. What did I learn about running a full distance Ironman? I learned plenty, I learned most of all that anything can happen on race day. So all you can do is train the best you can, plan the best you can and try not to worry about the things you have no control over. My training has been a progression from being pretty unfit just 3 years ago to Ironman ready this year. The ONE thing that has the most effect on your training is consistency and I have been very good at that over the past 3 years. In addition, I have learned a lot about how to train my body for Ironman events. I prefer to educate myself on these types of things verses getting a coach and/or following a written plan. Don't get me wrong, I see nothing at all wrong with that approach, in fact it is a VERY smart way to go and I did briefly use a swim coach to help me with some fundamentals. I just like the challenge of learning that side of the sport as well. Even though I do not have a coach, I have learned plenty from other friends and people I have met over the last 3 years. I have learned all sorts of cool stuff from my roadie bike friends that have enabled me to become a better cyclist. I took 3 months worth of specific swim coaching because I have no swim background and it was a huge weak spot for me. That was VERY beneficial for general stroke technique etc. I have friends like Dan and Brett that I have received documents, articles and general tips on training from. But most of all I have my biggest fan, my wife whom has just been unbelievably supportive in my Ironman ventures. Without her I would not be an Ironman. My race in Arizona did not go as I wanted, but I finished the race and I can always say I am an Ironman. With out a doubt an accomplishment I am proud of. But I am a goal oriented person and sometimes I set the bar pretty high for myself (Never anyone else) just me! So what are my goals in Louisville. Race well, that is it! I know what I am capable of and I know what my training tells me I can do . I just need to go do it. It is that simple and I plan on giving myself every opportunity to do my best by meeting all my training goals and planning very well for the race. On race day, I will execute my plan and everything that is out of my control I will simply improvise and do the best I can - just like everyone else. I have always raced my best races when I tried to keep things simple. Many times in my previous races I would occasionally repeat to myself - Smooth is fast Fast is smooth. It is a great saying and very true in this sport. It enables me to focus on the task at hand and when I do that I tend to go pretty fast. Ironman emboldens ones confidence beyond anything else I know. Confidence to conquer a task that most see as crazy or impossible is very powerful weapon to own for the rest of your life. So get ready Louisville, because I will be there soon and I will be ready.

What did you do on the 4th?

Well I hope your 4th was as good as mine. It started with perfect weather, you just could not ask for a nicer day, lots of sunshine, 85 degrees and little humidity makes for a perfect summer day. I rode the firecracker ride, a charity ride that I have done a couple of years now. Best part, as always are the people, I am so lucky to have such good friends who share my passion of Triathlon and most of them showed even after racing a full Ironman just a week ago. Sometimes I think these people are just super human, they are certainly super people! After training very hard myself through the winter and spring I am now getting close to my second Ironman race in Louisville and I was due for a much needed recovery week. My recovery week consist of a LOT less volume of training, probably 30% of what I normally do as well as less intensity. I was already starting to feel much better after starting this on Monday of this week and doing nothing for two days. (I had been hitting it pretty hard and the body said ENOUGH!) So I listened to my body and backed off. One thing I have learned is... when it is time for recovery you need to go VERY VERY easy. Most people go more like medium claiming to be in recovery, NOT good. Your body never really goes into deep recovery mode and thus when it is time to work hard again you will not have a new foundation to work to a higher level. I think people do this out of fear, fear that if they back off too much they will lose what they have gained. How wrong they are, you would literally have to do nothing for a solid two weeks to see that start to happen. So trust your training and take a much needed break, that is the lesson. I heard one coach say... One of the big difference between age group athletes and the pros is the pros go VERY VERY easy (Of course everything is relevant) on their recovery days and the age group athletes do most of their workouts at medium intensity. They do not recover at an easy enough intensity and they do not go hard enough when it is time to go hard. The examples he was using were easy recovery days verses hard intervals like track work etc. Most age groupers do too long of a session and thus cannot push as hard at the high end but instead opt to go longer. A good example of this is many of the bikers I see and ride with do longer rides and insert VERY high end surges into the ride to simulate a race condition, even though most of them do not race - they "think" this is the ticket to getting faster and there is "some" truth to this. I am not a "roadie" and I have never raced a bike road race but I think they might be better off following some of this same advice from this coach. I think they would do much better doing either a long easy ride, purely for endurance or a long endurance ride with big gear work for muscular endurance inserted periodically into the ride. Save the all out interval work for shorter rides and during the intervals go as hard as you can, recover fully and do it again. I know this has helped my cycling a lot over the past few years so I do not see how Tri would be "that" much different. The main reason explained the coach to not doing extended interval work is that it simply produces very little on the upside and on the downside just causes a longer recovery time between workout sessions to occur. Instead of better high end anaerobic work, you end up with a longer recovery interval because you went out and basically trashed yourself. Believe it or not a 30 minute track session of very hard intervals like 400 repeats etc. is all you need for your body to start waking up the anaerobic engine. A time trial of 8-10 miles, again plenty of high end work or maybe 30 minutes of sprinting in the hills followed by a recovery interval that is equal to half the work interval. More than that just causes a longer recover time before you can work again.

Ok, so back to the ride - we chose the 50k option, yes 30 something miles and we rode at a ridiculously slow pace. That is recovery the way it should be done - we did a short easy run afterwards but to be honest that was very easy as well and just kind of for fun. Personally, I wanted to see how well a couple of people could run that I had never run with and I got my answer.

Best part of all, I saw so many people I knew out riding and it is always great to get out and share the day with such wonderful people. My wife showed up for the luncheon afterwards where we shared more conversation, drink, food and laughs.

I hope your 4th was as good as mine.