Ironman Arizona Week 10: I can do this thing, really!

10 weeks down, 14 weeks to go.

This past week not only gave me another dose of Ironman reality check, but also gave me a dose of "I can do this thing!" reality check. It was also the highest volume training since I started the Ironman training, and my highest volume training week ever... and I survived, with a smile on my face and enthusiasm that I can do this Ironman! It feels great to finish the week on such a high.

After not swimming last week I got back into the pool twice this week - two 5:45am swim sessions, check! I didn't run quite as much this week, but did an extra bike workout and also took a rest day on Friday as I felt like I was coming down with a cold and I felt extremely tired and lacking energy after the Thursday night T3 trainer workout. It was a good decision.

Going into the weekend I was pretty nervous - we were to do a 95mi bike ride Saturday followed by the 20mi ARA running race on Sunday. It was a very important training weekend and, understandably, I was a little worried about being able to do it all. But I think the fact that I took it so seriously was a good thing - I made sure to eat properly and get plenty of rest leading up to the weekend.

Saturday morning we started the ride in fairly gloomy conditions - it was cold and overcast. But the meterologist had said it wouldn't rain until around 3pm when we should be finishing our ride. The lying bastard! It started raining about 1hr into the ride. Not really hard rain, mostly drizzle and a few larger drops every now and again. But it made for very slick conditions on the roads. I was glad to be wearing my bright yellow cycling vest which at least made me feel a little bit more safe out there on the roads - that the cars could actually see me. We did a pretty tough bike ride, started at Lost Creek then made our way to Fitzhugh and took it all the way to Johnson City. Plenty of hills!!! I was cursing our coaches wisdom of making us do 90 miles of hills the day before a 20mi long run! I did have another one of those "what the hell am I doing" moments during hours two and three on the bike. It was raining at that point and a few of us had just fallen off the main group (I was nervous descending on those slippery roads so I took it easy). I started questioning, again, why I am even doing all this training. I shed a few crocodile tears. Then Gordon said we should work together to catch the main part of the group, so I told myself to get a grip and we spent the next 30 minutes working together and caught some people up ahead, which felt good! After the turnaround point I started feeling much better. There were some tough hills coming back including one monster of a hill that we got to go down on the way out to the turnaround point, but had to climb back up on the way home. But it really wasn't too bad. I was feeling good. Finally we finished, around 3pm, most of the day was gone! As soon as we finished it started raining heavily, so it was good to get in the car, go home and get warm, eat and relax.

Sunday we woke up to a gloriously sunny, not too cold, morning. I was feeling a little bit tired and my legs felt a bit heavy, but I was feeling surprisingly good and quite upbeat about running the 20 miles. We made our way down to the outlet malls (where the race started), ran into some of our friends and had a quick chat, then we were off! Gordon and I started running together but we both wanted to run our own pace so I took off a little bit, although Gordon was never too far behind! The course had some good hills but nothing too terrible, and the weather was just gorgeous and I felt good! I was deliberately keeping a really easy pace to conserve my energy and just get through the run - I was treating it more like a supported long run than a race. By holding back and conserving my energy, I kept a consistent pace the whole race, never felt like walking and even managed to kick it up a notch for the last mile. It felt good to pass so many people who had gone out too hard early on and couldn't hold the pace for the rest of the race. I ran into a few friends and colleagues from work - I was quite surprised to see my boss (well, my boss's boss) out there on the course. We had a chat for a while. Saw a few people that I used to run with and chatted with them too. My old marathon coach, Steve, gave me some great motivation at mile 19 - "Now, I know YOU know how to suffer, bring this thing home!!!". I much prefer to have that type of motivation rather than just the standard "Good job, you're nearly there!". Just like for some strange reason I like to listen to hip-hop when I'm doing a hard trainer workout, the nastier the lyrics the better!

I PR'ed the 20mi distance by over 17 minutes, nearly 1 minute per mile faster than when I ran the RunTex 30K in January 2004 when I was training for my first marathon. In fact, it's the first time I've ran this distance since my marathon in 2004. Plus, I did it after cycling 90 miles the day before. Way to go me!

I almost made my hours this week. I didn't do any core workout (need to get back on that) and I was a little short on running, mostly because I under-estimated how long the 20 mile race would take me - I thought I'd come in closer to 3.5 hours!

Goal hours: 16.5

Actual hours: 14.2

Bike: 7.9hrs / 130 miles

Run: 3.9hrs / 24.5 miles

Swim: 2.5hrs / 5600m

I find it really interesting the range of emotions that I go through with this training, from feeling like giving up and questioning why I am even doing this training to being on a complete high and feeling so strong and sure that I can do this Ironman. Not only am I training my body, but my mind as well. Every week seems to bring about a new mental challenge of some sort, but it's this type of training that will really make the difference on the day of the Ironman.