Ironman Louisville Training 2018 {weeks 1-4}

Training Cycle total: 

Running : 110.78 miles, 15:48 hours

Cycling: 297.27 miles, 17:56 hours

Swimming: 0 miles, 0 hours

Yearly total: 

Running : 1111.07 miles, 158:08 hours

Cycling: 527. 27 miles, 36:12 hours

Swimming: 0 miles, 0 hours

Week 1

I went into this week feeling frustrated and flat. I also was sick and missed some workouts which I was apathetic about - usually I feel guilty to miss workouts.  I knew something needed to change so I started dissecting what was bothering me about my current plan from Be Iron Fit. I nailed my lack of excitement down to the running part of the plan- I didn’t like it- didn’t feel it was conducive to my usual training. 

Since Ironman training is still new to me, I didn’t want to deviate too much from an actual plan- but I needed something that would put the fun back into training. So I reworked my 18 week plan to include elements of the Hanson Marathon plan- mainly the speedwork. I was initially bothered that the Iron Fit plan didn’t have much speedwork/different speed workouts than I’m used to. I also didn’t want to go into post race starting in a worse place than I left off after Boston. Because, Goalz. 

I spent the week reworking everything and instantly felt more excited about everything. 

Week 2

Pretty much nailed all of my workouts- I gave myself some leeway with the running and cycling and felt like I was on the right track for this cycle. 

We saw Alt-J during this week. It was nice to see a live concert and enjoy a chilly spring night outside in Chicago. 

Week 3

Textbook. I felt great about training this week. 

Return of the Tuesday Uniform! I started doing 400’s again on tuesdays. I was excited and encouraged that I was able to bang the 400’s out at 6:18 pace (Boston training pace) and that it felt easy. Much better than when I had started Boston training in December! This definitely gave me a jolt of  excitement because I hadn’t done speedwork in months, and was enjoying full on sloth mode for the weeks since Boston and Copenhagen. 

Week 4!

Another week of feeling great about everything (broken record) . I’ve been running with Ze more and more and that makes me super happy. He’s a great running buddy! 

I ran the Chicago 10k on Sunday and felt much better than I expected based on the training load during the week. 

I also dropped my bike Mortadella, off at the spa for some much needed spa and me time in this season of Ironman training. It’s her first tuneup ever since I bought her in October 2015. I’ve got some outdoor rides planned and want to be a responsible cyclist and ensure Mortadella is healthy.  

Training Thoughts:

Swimming: I haven’t swam since my last IM in September 2016. I know I won’t get significantly better without intensive lessons and time in the water. I was comfortably within the cutoff last time- so I’ll swim 1-2x a week starting soon. I need to practice but to spend a ton of time on this to cut 10 min off my time isn’t worth it to me. 

Cycling: I’m focusing more on cycling since I was solidly sub mediocre at IM Wisconsin. I spent nearly 8 hours on the bike there! (Yeah it’s a beast of a course- but that result is embarrassing) I’ve been using Zwift which kicks my ass and motivates me to cycle harder than I would normally on the trainer. (Without Zwift I would screw around on my phone and not cycle with enough intensity) 

Running: I’m adding speedwork to my plan which is different than last time. (There’s a theme here) I did a lot of quantity, but not a lot of quality/intensity last time. By adding some intensity to my weekly mix, I know I’ll have a much more enjoyable experience at IMLou. I also know to be careful about adding too much running since it takes longer to recover. 

After 4 weeks of training I’m feeling empowered and excited to tackle my 2nd Ironman in October. Im confident that all the tweaks to my training will result in taking hours off of my last time of 14:39. (Mainly from cycling and running).

111 days to go!