When people find out that I’m training for an Ironman the conversation invariably steers towards the training that it takes to be able to complete a 140.6-mile race.
Now, while I’m not “mister speedy” out there, I thought I’d share a little of my preparation for the Ironman World Championship this October in Kona, Hawaii.
Things kicked off in October last year as I started to get back into training with my coach Paul Kinney (Kinney Multisport).
Paul has been my coach since I started doing triathlons in 2008. Having a coach is critical to me. The accountability keeps me honest, and I don’t have to think about my training, I just have to do it.
My overall training regime consists of swimming three times a week, biking three times a week, and running three times a week.
I also add in yoga three times a week as I find it helps keep me injury-free.
So that’s twelve workouts crammed into six days (Mondays are nominally a recovery day, though, I still do yoga), with longer distance workouts at the weekend.
The duration, distance, or intensity of each workout builds week-over-week for three weeks and then the fourth week is a recovery week with lighter intensity workouts.
This four-week cycle repeats month-after-month, ad-nauseam, until race day (twelve months for me this time, though typically it’d be more like nine months).
To make everything a little more concrete, here’s my training schedule from last week (my first race of the season is five weeks away, Ironman Florida 70.3, and I’ve just finished my penultimate four-week cycle before the race):
| Workout | Duration | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Rest Day | ||
| Yoga | 1:00:00 | ||
| Tuesday | Bike | 1:00:15 | 19 miles |
| Run | 0:10:43 | 1.12 miles | |
| Wednesday | Yoga | 1:00:00 | |
| Swim | 0:44:02 | 2,000 yards | |
| Thursday | Bike | 1:00:15 | 18.4 miles |
| Run | 0:55:38 | 5.82 miles | |
| Friday | Yoga | 1:00:00 | |
| Swim | 0:44:14 | 2,000 yards | |
| Saturday | Bike | 3:26:10 | 55 miles |
| Run | 0:46:04 | 4.7 miles | |
| Sunday | Swim | 0:47:49 | 2200 yards |
| Run | 1:50:07 | 11 miles | |
| 14:25:17 | 119 miles |
Over fourteen hours and nearly one hundred and twenty miles, and that’s for a Half Ironman.
As it gets closer to October most of the above times and distances will increase, (particularly the weekend workouts), as I build towards being ready for the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run in Kona. By then I’ll be training over twenty hours and covering closer to two hundred miles a week.
You may be thinking, “wow, there’s no way I could do that.”
That’s certainly what I said to myself when I first started doing triathlons and saw these “crazies” who were training for their first Ironman.
“Why would they want to do that?” I’d exclaim to anyone willing to listen.
And yet here I am…as with many things in life, it’s a gradual progression that starts with an incredulous first step.
Thank you to everyone who has donated to date to help me reach my goal of raising $50,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) by my 50th birthday next February.
I’m up to $17,524 already!
A big shout out to Alex, Julian, R2, Cynthia, Bob, Brian, Claire & Sean, Patricia, Stefan, Seph, Lynne, James, Jordan, Victor, Hershy, Christine, Kat, Chris, and Marla, thank you for your support.
Can you help? Kerry and I will match you dollar for dollar.
You can donate online here:
http://support.challengedathletes.org/goto/kona-2020