Yeah, I could probably do that too...

I signed up for Iron Man Canada. My goal has never been to do a IM. I don't think to be a triathlete you have to ever do or think of doing an Iron Man. I hate it when you tell someone you're doing a tri and their first reaction is " so you're swimming like 3 miles and biking 200 miles and running a marathon?!?"

I guess it just shows how obscure the sport of triathlon still is. The only real thing the majority of people know about it is what NBC show's in late Dec from Kona. A 9-17 hour plus race in just over two hours...

I always feel odd when I have to tell the person "no, it's a .9 mile swim, 24ish mile bike, 6 mile run" or whatever distance it is. The look goes from - OH, Cool - to - oh, that's nice.
With the overtone of - yeah, I could probably do that too...

A friend of mine asked - so after IM what do you do? Ultra Tri's? 100 mile footraces?
I thought about it for a awhile and pondered whether or not it was worth ranting off my reason's why IM is not the end of the road or the Everest of the sport for me. (for a lot I think)

Instead I just said I'll focus on training before I focus on what's next, after all it is still some 11 months down the road. I don't think that was the answer he wanted. Good thing I'm not doing it for him...

I am doing it, after years of saying I had no interest in doing it because I feel my body is at the point of being able to take the training (no small point) and I have the support group of friends to train with in place to keep the focus over the long road ahead. Two things I didn't have in place that are going to be huge in the small details of getting ready. Just like running a marathon, you have to survive training before you can even think about running 26.2.

For myself I don't really buy the mentality of signing up for a race or event to just survive the day. I want training to be as hard as possible to reflect the race that I'm jumping into. Whether that's a sprint, Oly, 70.3 or IM. Racing at my limit has always been what the long training months have been about.

Always! If not, then what is the point of being away from family and friends and putting up with all the pain and restrictions for.

This next year of training starts soon and w/ out the thought of, for lack of a better term, training to be stronger, faster and better. I don't see the point. So I guess that's just a long way of saying that I don't see IMC as just try and survive the day, but a race.

Don't get me wrong, surviving the day will be I'm guessing 50% of the day, if I'm lucky to have it be that little, but the focus and goal is to be ready for a day of racing. A day that shows all the work in training come forward and all the goals realized. A day of racing like it was your best 5K sub 20....

Looking back at the season...

This year was a bit different than most I've had. I was looking for my first 70.3 and trying to deal with the added training time in relation to the burnout factor than hits at the end of every season. My plan was to miss the first race of the year, meaning I could postpone training for a month, hoping that I'd also push the burnout factor out a month as well.

Now don't get me wrong, I love all the training and everything that goes into making the machine move, but I also know myself. And planning ahead can save a huge meltdown on the system and to those around you in the long run.

The only thing I was never happy w/ this year was my swim training. I took a class and that improved my stroke and thought process in the water, but getting in the water was were I feel asleep on the job. Last year I did 55 swim workouts - 27 of those open water. This year I only did 18 open water swims, and 4 of those were in races. Argh!

No excuse for that! I was a bit faster than last year and just a bit fresher coming out of the water than last year, but never felt I hit the potential I could of with mroe time in the water.

On the other hand, or leg, my bike had really big improvements. I increased ave speed from 18 plus to just over 20 mph. Of course flat courses are still my down fall, need more stomp! Working on that as we speak or write, hitting the gym pretty hard over the last few weeks. If I can maintain strength and core training over the next 2 months, I should be right where I've never been before.

My running this year was above ave, but again I didn't get the track workouts like I did last year. I believe I was so hot in the run last year because of track and running at the Disco 2-3X a week. This year I just ran the Disco maybe once a week and only did a few track workouts a month. I did maintain longer 6-8 mile runs 3x a week for a larger base than last year. Also, w/ the 70.3 half marathon I didn't really know what pace I should be training at - Half speed - 7:10 / Full speed - 8:30? Didn't really know...

Overall I did as I wanted to, with a few minor notes to self.

Get your head in the game or go home. With tri season, like any other sport, the game is the whole thing. Training/recovery/racing. You can't phone in any one of them and expect to have the results or hit the goals that you sent for yourself. It's hard to remember that at 5:45am when you're leaving for the 3X that week to get to the pool for some laps. Or throw on the shoes to hit the road for your 8th workout that week and it's only Thursday.

Well, of course it wouldn't be worth it if it wasn't so damn fun and rewarding. Those are the things you have to remember, that and the way you felt when you didn't give 100% or didn't train like you knew you should of. Such a fine line...