Week 1

The end of week one has come and the totals aren't bad. Not exceptionally impressive but not too shabby. There was one run work out skipped but everything else seems to have fallen in place. Swimming total was 2:45 for 6500 yards, about 4 miles. Running was 2:25 for 11 miles. Biking was 3:05 for 40.23 miles. At least there is some consistancy starting to happen and the task isn't as overwhelming.

Now it is the start of week 17 of tri training and week 4 of the Mark Allen plan.

A week into it

We are 1 week into the new training mentality and so far it's been good. I feel like I've made progress in my swimming these last few weeks. The current training plan is set up for the Boulder 70.3 in August, which until recently was my "A Priority" race. May 23rd will put me 20 weeks out from Kona so I will start my official Kona training plan Monday May 24th. Until then I am getting to slack off a bit and just build a solid base.

I've done two very slow rides on the computrainer and haven't been impressed with my abilities, but the trainer is a really cool. Ordered aero bars for my road bike, had them installed and have done my two trainer rides in the aero position. The plan is to ride outside tomorrow if the weather permits, it's practically a flood here right now, for my long ride.

I'm getting a bit faster with the running pace and staying within my heart rate limits, this week I was able to run at 5 mph on the treadmill compared to last weeks 4 mph. Progress.

Training...

The motivation has been low these last few days. Hard to get to the pool and fit those workouts in.

I have been thinking about fundraising for the event. Janus has a program for athletes to raise funds for their favorite charity. Janus will contribute to the charities of the top 50 fundraisers http://www.januscharitychallenge.com/site/pp.aspx?c=egLOIYOGKtF&b=591467

The week-ends have me doing my long bike on Saturday and long run on Sunday. I am considering revising that since my absence isn't going over too well at home. In using the Mark Allen training program the focus is on time within certain heart rate limits for each workout. SO far my not so fast 9 minute mile running pace has been slowed to an even more impressive 12 minute mile pace. I'm supposed to give it time to improve but it is a bit frustrating to be going slower instead of faster.

I do feel I have more direction with my training than I did before when left to my own devices.

So it begins

When the Kona lottery opened a few months ago I entered it thinking what an opportunity IF I were to win a spot. The odds weren't in my favor- 4000+ lottery applicants, 150 domestic spots.

The lottery drawing was Thursday April 15th, 2010 at noon. Here is it Friday April 16th and I have "won" a spot in the 2010 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. It's 176 days, roughly 4200 hours, 252,000 minutes, and 15200000 seconds until I will be standing on the beach in Hawaii beginning the 2.4 ocen swim portion of the race. I've been planning to do the Boulder 70.3 Ironman in August so I've been training for a few weeks. The holidays and the new year slowed me down from the marathon last October.

I have been calculating and I have 17 hours to complete the race. Within that I have 2 hours and 20 minutes to swim 2.4 miles and from the start of the race I have 10 hours and 30 minutes to have completed the swim and biked 112 miles. Based on my current paces I will finish the race in approximately 15 hours. Better get to training since that is one long time to be swimming, biking, and running.

I've begun training using a Mark Allen program, hoping it will help with the overwhelming feeling I have with the task at hand.

As the training moves along I plan to update the blog and chronicle my journey to the finish of the 2010 Ironman. So, today begins the training for the 2010 Ironman World Championship and since it's Friday it's off to the pool.