The fight has begun and both fighters are in their corners; in the one corner you have the contender also known as the “fish” and in the opposing corner you have the heavy weight title holder Mr. Ironman! “Get ready to fight!”.
It is always easy to take a decision to do something, but without a plan it is also easy to fail and as someone much wiser than me, Benjamin Franklin, supposedly said in the past “If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”.
While I am not a planner, I knew that getting into this I needed to find a good strategy as my opponent was difficult to beat. Thus, after asking around and trying to figure out the best approach, I relied on a tool called TrainingPeaks that provides plans for your IRONMAN training with a lot of details and information for you along the way.
One of the first thoughts when downloading the mobile application and having a look at the detailed daily plan was “wow”, this is a lot of training, way more then I anticipated, and my immediate second thought was that I needed to set my expectations a bit differently – You see, I thought I could juggle it all: full time job that requires 50% traveling, girlfriend, friends, and Netflix. Well, that ain’t gonna happen. You gotta start reducing your time on some things and putting it elsewhere (like training).
What I started doing is looking at my training schedule and also my work schedule and setting a plan of action around that so I could know where I had to be every minute of the day. Sounds good in principle, but as we all know these plans are good as guidelines, but they don’t always work 100% in real life; thus I needed to be a bit more flexible and allow some room for error and some skipped sessions here and there. In the end, life always gets in the way in some way or another.
Since there is a lot of Swimming, Cycling and Running involved, it is good to decide where you are going to do those. You have long and short sessions, so try to figure out with research if those sessions will be close to your house, in the next door pool, or at a cycle track and factor the time you need to get there – also a lot of days you may have “brick” sessions or multiple session from different disciplines, so try to find a place that you can mix them up.
Trial and error are a big part of training for an ironman so what works for the guy at www.ironmaniownyou.com (doesn’t exist, so don’t click), will not necessarily work for you. Everyone has a different body type, different build and different mentality so do get tips from what they recommend about products, training sessions, etc., but always test and see what works the best for you! Maybe the guy that won KONA last year uses Adidas, but it can be the case that Adidas don’t get along well with your feet. Keep a diary of what you are doing: in the form of a blog post or in a notebook, it is up to you – but most importantly don’t go on a spending spree and get every single thing you see on amazon (don’t be me in other words). One of the first people that won IRONMAN KONA, had no sports watch, an aluminum bike, and no speedometer the lesson being, some things help, others are just nice to have.
One of the most important aspects of training is nutrition, I can’t emphasize it enough; this is something you need to nail down, either on your own or with the help of specialists, but do spend time understanding what is needed not only during the race, but months before and after as well. Our body does change but it takes time, so don’t expect to start eating healthy a week before your race and expect to see results. Plan, test, and commit to your plan.
Every person that commits to such a challenge does it for his own reasons, some fighting for cancer, others for challenging themselves, and still others may have lost a bet, but for everyone those reasons are important; however, never forget, you are here to also have fun so relax and enjoy every minute of the training and the Ironman unless, of course, you are a professional athlete. The best advise I have to give, as the song “always wear sunscreen” says is “relax, put a smile on your face and enjoy the training” – when you get tired and the load increases, and sometimes it seems more like work then fun, repeat the above sentence, smile and enjoy. It makes your life so much easier – The same will apply for race day – “relax, put a smile on your face and enjoy the race”.
While the journey towards an Ironman is long, I recommend taking it a step at a time, plan your steps and execute, and you know what? If at some point you feel tired, take a small break, breath in the fresh air, and resume when ready (well don’t give it more then 2-3 days break, as the body always starts to forget what you have taught it after a week). Always listen to your body and your mind during this process.
“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond into the impossible”. –Arthur C. Clarke
Peace out, and thanks for reading.