Paying the Ironman Dues

There comes a time when the ironman training starts getting really tough, when you confidence falters and when you just wish the training was over with and you had your life back.

This week I started I started with heavy volume again after tapering off for my Duathlon race. All I want to do besides train is eat and nap. The rest of life I am just going through the motions. Work barely gets done, the house is a mess and the yard has had a hard summer.

It's the price you pay for doing an extreme endeavor. At this point in training six hour bike rides, three hour runs, 4000 yard swims are the norm. It's only about four to six weeks of the whole training cycle, but it leaves you energy for little else. You get really cranky because you are so tired. If you are lucky, you don't get sick or injured.

Sunday I rode the Bee Line race route for five and a half hours and it was miserable. I hadn't done a long bike in a month and my legs hurt. My bike rides have been going fairly well, but this day the wind was howling from the south west, the same direction that the highway goes as it goes south. Riding uphill was deceptively easy. Going downhill, I found out why. The wind was blowing straight up the highway and it was more effort riding down than up. Usually you can fly going downhill. Riding southwest and west was a real effort. I told myself that at least I am getting the training even though I am going slower than hell. It's the kind of riding experience where you curse the wind and you just want it to be over with. I was really tired and I hurt.

Tuesday I did a two and a half hour run on the IMAZ run course. I also had not run long in a month and it was surprisingly tiring. Each lap of the run goes over three bridges(one twice) and there is also a significant hill to run up. It was a lot of cement to hurt my feet and some areas are utterly monotonous. I can see that this run would be challenging, even without a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike before it.

Even this misery has an end. I only have three more six hour bike rides and two more two plus hours of running along with the shorter workouts. I have maybe four 4000 yard swim workouts. Then it's a taper and hope that I did enough. Forty-five days and counting.