In case anyone is wondering what it takes to win 5 sprint races and a 1/2 Ironman, set a new Ironman PR and beat the crap out of a double Ironman over 4 days, here it is:
| Season Totals | 09/15/2008-08/30/2009 |
| Swim: | 459718 yards (260.91 miles) in 158.77 hours |
| Bike: | Approx. 5910.305 miles in 329.66 hours |
| Run: | Approx. 1355.22 miles in 208.26 hours |
| Strength: | 52.84 hours |
| All Sports: | Approx. 7526.44 miles in 749.53 hours; approx. 333461 calories burned |
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| Stretching: | 99.29 hours. Massage: 49.25 hours |
Ladies and gentlemen: That is the most biking I have done in a season ever since I first began doing triathlons! That is what got me my Ironman PR. It's not the most total hours for any of the sports--it's that I got faster biking, running, and I guess a little bit swimming, although the swimming wasn't so much reflected in my racing. The most total hours of training I've done in a season was from 2003-2004.
Looking ahead to Ultraman Canada, I've sketched out a training plan that gives me 858 training hours between now and UMC. If I follow conventions about how much I train and how much of an increase I should be able to do safely, I should only to up go 825 hours for this new season. I suspect that as I go back through what I think I need to do between January and July that I will be cutting a bit here and there, since there are 3 weekends where I want to do a huge swim (6000 plus yards) and long ride (2.5-3 hours) on Day 1, a long ride (7-8 hours) Day 2, and a long run (2-2.5 hours) on Day 3, and I'm sure I will need more recovery from those training bouts than I think! The jury is still out on retaining a coach, but I feel pretty set in what I've scheduled through Goofy Challenge.
Still, the whole deal looks pretty daunting and even scary on paper. Which is what I expected it to be. I would never have expected to do the same amount of training as I did this year or that I've ever done to complete an Ultraman. I really can't do much more training during the week than I already do (I can do 10-12 hours depending on where I am in my cycle), but somehow I will need to try and manage a little more if I want to get in 2 long runs, 2 long rides, a huge swim, 2 more swims, 1 more shorter ride, and 3-4 more shorter runs. For May-July, anyway. Before then, I will stick with a proven training pattern that has worked for me that has me swimming and running M/W/F, shorter quality rides Tu/Th, a long ride on Saturday plus a little transition run (I don't really need to do brick workouts for Ultraman), and a long run on Sunday.
But it's pretty exciting to look at my plan so far, and yes, it's nutso.
Back to this past week. I didn't try to do what I did after IMLP since I don't have another Ironman coming up anytime soon, and I had never done a double Ironman either, so I have been careful about my recovery this week. I only did 2 swims, but got in some decent biking. I thought that I should at least do some walking today, and it looked like it might rain, so I got started around 9:30 just walking around the block where I live, and then I did a couple of repeats walking up and down the hill from my house. I have to say, walking is boring, but I have an objective to get faster at it, since I will be doing a good amount of it during the North Face 50-miler at least, and maybe some during Ultraman--who knows?
I really had wanted to go to
Greene Valley and go up and down the huge hill maybe 5 times, but in retrospect, I'm glad I stuck close to home for the first hour or so, because I didn't really need the mega-hill workout this week. After I walked almost 5 miles near home, I worked some more on my training plan, watched the weather, and decided it was going to be nice and so I headed to Greene Valley around 12:30 (Yes, I am a slacker today sleeping in and taking my sweet time!).
I knew it was a mile up the big hill since I'd ridden it last fall, and while I really want to run up and down the hill, today was about just getting time on my feet. So I walked up the first time with camera in hand, and it took about 15 minutes, not bad for climbing! I took some nice pics on the way up and while up top, since you can see a lot of the surrounding area including where I live:
heading up--you can see the rise in the hill
a car heading up to the top (for some perspective)
more cars
getting near the top--it's getting steeper now
This is up top--a military plane of some sort kept circling the area.
This is looking north and east about where my house would be by that water tower about 1/3 across the top
Looking down at a car coming up
Looking to the north and east--you can see the tower in Oak Brook that I've climbed before and is also where I used to swim in the basement years ago
Not sure where I'm looking here
Looking south and west
Looking northThe second time down the hill, I ran easily all the way, and it was totally fun! I've always wanted to run up, though, and I will do that in a few weeks. There are a bunch of flat trails in this forest preserve, so I'm going to make heavy use of it in the next 4 weeks, weather permitting, so I can run some flats, run some hill, and then hike hill and look out over my dominion!
I ended up walking 9.5 miles today. Somehow it doesn't feel like a workout, but it's not bad considering I did walk at a brisk pace (14mpm overall). Still, I need to get faster at the walking thing, and hopefully I will do that soon enough.
Tomorrow I have a day off and will swim, bike and run. Oops--a triathlon, I guess! No, I will be taking some time in between efforts and just enjoying the day.
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend as much as I am!
282.3 is the total miles I covered during ROTPM, and IFPM stands for I'm a Fucking PirateMan, which was recommended to me by a Facebook friend! I suppose that when I finish UltraMan, I will need to cover this entire sticker up and replace it with 318.6, which is the Ultraman total distance.
