Skip to main content

Ironman Arizona Training - so far

I am two months into my six month training block for Ironman Arizona! (11/19 in Tempe). It feels so RIGHT to be back into triathlon specific training. I've spent the first half of this year focusing on my nutrition, working out as much as I could to drop some weight before training started. I dropped 15lbs but also gained a lot of muscle! Looking forward to seeing how these changes in my body composition affect my training and race times. Also, would love to drop 5-10 more pounds during training to get to my ideal racing weight. Which shouldn't be hard now that I've figured out my macros and gotten everything nutritionally dialed in! (and will be working out 2 hours a day during the week and 4-8 hours each weekend day...) I've already gotten faster on my average run time, will be fun to see what I can do speed wise when I race a couple shorter tri's the next few months.

I'm using TrainingPeaks this time around for training - a training plan written by D3 Multisport. I picked an advanced plan (and it is TOTALLY out of my league, but I'm managing) and I'm hopeful this will help take me to the next level. I want to get faster on the bike, be able to put together all three sports and not blow up on one. In Whistler I didn't push hard enough on the bike but ran ok (super slow, but considering it was my first Ironman I was pretty happy) and last year I overdid it on the bike and fell apart physically and mentally on the run. I want AZ to be different. If I could get a decent marathon time and have a solid ride (I know it's bad but I just don't worry about the swim) then I think I can piece together a 13 hour Ironman. That would be AMAZING. I know better than to think I have an Ironman race all figured out because you just can't predict what is going to happen during such a long day, but I would be SO thrilled to get sub 14 and maybe even around 13 hours! I'm certainly getting fast enough to pull it off, if I can piece it all together! 

I have a couple shorter triathlons coming up - the Lake Meridian Tri in a couple weeks and the Black Diamond half distance in September. Then October will be the BIG, heavy training month, and before you know it we're headed to AZ!

The second half of this year, besides a lot of training, has a LOT of travel. We just got back from 16 days in Europe which was SO wonderful. I ran 14/16 days while we were there and got to really see every city we were in (Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Nuremberg, and Munich!). As amazing as vacation was, it was nice to get home and back to training (and back to Wilson!) In less than two months we'll head to Maui to celebrate the Bean/Edwards wedding!!! Cannot wait to be back there, Maui holds a special place in my heart AND is my happy place. THEN Ironman Arizona will be another trip in November! Lots of travel, which I love.

I'm going to try to write here more often now that I'm training again - I love being able to go back and reflect on different phases of training, how I was feeling, and even just remember things I forget.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Being a spectator: Ironman 70.3 Lake Stevens and 10 year reunions

Lake Stevens is less than 40 minutes from downtown Seattle, so Isaac and I decided to go watch the Lake Stevens Ironman 70.3. We had assumed earlier in the year we couldn't race this half Ironman 3 weeks post Ironman Canada and didn't sign up. We saw some participants wearing their IM Canada 2015 Finisher hats and were a liiiiiittle jealous. Would have loved to participate, but who knows how that would have felt on my knee, which is still hurting on runs post race (but my brain was wishing I was out on the course the whole time!) The swim start was in waves, which I'm assuming was fantastic. Nice and calm, surrounded by your age group instead of 2,000 people! Swim start So foggy on the lake! Coming in from the swim T1 and T2 were in the same spot. This portion felt like a normal tri - you have your transitions preset and have to get your run gear wet while you strip out of your wetsuit! I really loved having gear bags and changing in tents in two separate tra...

2021/2022 - Pregnancy, baby, return to racing

WOW. So much has changed since I last posted in here. About two months after that last post I found out I was pregnant!  I spent 2021 in various phases of life: First trimester I was super sick and actually unable to even get much movement in! I don't think I've ever worked out that little in my life! Every day just felt like a struggle to survive. Second and third trimesters I was able to swim, bike, run and lift. I was able to run up until a couple days before I gave birth! I mostly ran and lifted - I hated biking pregnant and wanted to limit my covid exposure so I didn't go to the pool super consistently until the very end of my pregnancy. I spent the rest of 2021 fumbling my way through learning how to be a mom and take care of a baby! It was months of living in a haze of no sleep, hormones and tears BUT with all of that in the rear view, it was an amazing time of growth and learning so much. I had 4 IM branded deferred races from 2020 that rolled to 2021, then to 2022....

Ironman Mont Tremblant Race Report

Short Summary - Swim: 1:06 - PR by 3 minutes Bike: 6:06 - PR by 9 minutes (but on a WAY tougher course than AZ!) Run: 4:28 - PR by 3 min Overall: 11:52:21 IM MT Swim:  short version- got a swim PR. long version - as I walked to the swim start, I cried (I don’t think I’ve cried in 2019). I felt so thankful to get to the start line, to be a part of this incredible group of people, and so proud of all the work I put in the bank to get here. As soon as I lined up to hit my rolling start, a calm overcame me and I repeated “stay present, each mile as it comes”. I ran in, dove to start and instantly my goggles filled with water. FUCK. I stopped to drain them and tried to keep swimming - repeated that 4 more times till I just treaded water to try to see what was wrong. Could I do this swim with no goggles or with them full? I swam so many OWS with these goggles, what on earth was happening?! Eventually I got the left goggle cleared and staying water free, and just dealt with a...