Iron Training Week 1 - Mike D.

Here I go again on that road. Going down a road I really don't know.

After successfully finishing the Vineman Half Ironman in July and taking about 2 full week off of training, I began to start working out again and getting ready to start my 13 week training camp to get ready for the Arizona Full Ironman in November. It was a bit weird during the lull because I didn't really feel like doing anything. If not for my fear of dying on the run during the Ironman, I could of easily found myslef not doing anything during that 5 weeks of downtime. Fortunately, I mustered up the strength to get out and do some running, biking, and swimming during that period so when I started my ramp up last Monday the 22nd, I actually felt pretty good.

I started off the week with some Yoga on Monday and then proceeded to rotate run & swim days for bike days the rest of the week. The week day training is actually pretty similar to the half iron traiing as far as time goes, but it does require you to commit a bit more intensity. The weekends however, end up going up quite a bit in time as the Saturday run start at an hour and 45 minutes and climb to 3 hours and 15 minutes over the 13 week build. The bike is no different and that climbs from 3 hours to 6 hours and 15 minutes. Both intense, but I think I'll be able to manage as long as I can keep my partying to a minimum and focus on nutrition and recovery whenever I can.

The only set back I had this week came on Saturday when I went out to run. I got about 6 miles in and then sort of gave up and started walking becuase the heat was too much. After the run, I found out the heat index was 104 and I didn't feel so bad. When I finished the road work, I had ended up running about 7 miles and walking around 5.5. Not bad as far as distance goes, but it was a bit disheartening as I hadn't walked that far on a run ever. To add insult to injury, my back was pretty broke off all week from that death march and I just started feeling better this morning. I feel goo now though and am ready to tackle week 2.

Training totals for week 1:

Swim: 4 miles

Bike: 90 miles

Run: 24 miles