The Iron Double

Only 16 days removed from Ironman Lake Placid, I've been trying to transition and recover in time for my 2nd Ironman of the summer and my fourth chance to qualify for Kona this year. I'm starting to wonder if I'm chasing Kona too hard and if I should simply relax and let the Kona spot come to me.

My first race of the season was Ironman 70.3 Oceanside. The race went okay for early April, but it was a bit hard training for this race. I was nursing a foot injury that prevented me from doing much running for the final weeks leading up to this race and biking outside was kept to a minimum due to the bad weather over the winter. I finished the race 12th in my age group and was lucky enough to get the last qualification slot to the Half Ironman World Championship race in Clearwater Florida in November.

In May I suffered my first serious bike accident and wound up in the emergency room with a separated shoulder and a fractured rib. Even though I would be back on the bike in less than a week my run training again suffered and it took me over three weeks of recovery before I could swim more than 2000 yards.

Back on track for June, I raced Ironman 70.3 Eagleman. I had a solid race but came up short once again finishing 7th in my age group.

In late July I raced Ironman Lake Placid and would come up short of Kona by seven minutes. I finished in 5th place but the last Kona spot went to the 4th place guy.

The week after Ironman Lake Placid was very hard. I told myself I was done with Ironman. Ironman and I were through. Coming so close to your goal and falling short was hard to comprehend at times but I tried not to let it get me down.

One week out from Ironman, Coach Luis told me to go and do a 45 minute run to see how I felt and if recovery was going well. I did the run, but didn't feel stellar, totally expected. My legs didn't hurt but the spark in my legs was still missing. Last week was another week of active recovery and every day that passed, I started to feel a little bit better. This past weekend I headed out for a 2 hour ride, a 70 minute run and a long swim. I felt good during the swim and bike but still was sluggish on the run. Then again it was 90 degrees and I was wearing two long sleeve shirts including a mock turtleneck to try acclimate to the Kentucky heat.

I really think the true test will come today at the track. I have three one mile intervals to do and it should give me a baseline as to where my fitness is currently at. Coach had me do this exact workout the same amount of days out from Ironman Placid and I was able to run a 5:46 mile, another 5:46 mile and finished with a 5:38 mile all while keeping my heart rate under 170. It'll be interesting to see how things compare today. I don't expect to go quite as fast, but if I can keep my pace under six, it'll be a good day. Mark Allen says that it takes a day per mile ran to recover, so in the case of Ironman, that's 26 days. That means I should be fully recovered towards the end of next week well into my taper.

The remainder of this week consists of a lot of mid-distance work. My long ride is 4.5 hours and my long run is 2 hours and my long swim is 5500 yards. Besides that, most workouts are kept to around an hour to 90 minutes. Next Monday I fly to San Diego for work and will be there all week. I'm looking forward to meeting up with Marit for an open water swim and maybe even a run. I'm planning on renting a bike on one of the days that I'm out there and plan to do a 50 miler along the Pacific Coast Highway.