Sunday, June 10, 2012

And So It Begins...

Last Sunday marked the official start of my 6-month training plan for Ironman Arizona. I've stayed thoroughly active throughout the "off-season" but by comparison Ironman training will bury my winter workouts.

This first week of workouts quickly reminded me of the importance of having a coach at this stage of the game.  For one thing the complexity of the overall plan (including its various phases) and the different types of individual workouts is difficult to coordinate. Doing the workouts will be hard enough; I'm just glad I don't have to plan them out. My job now is simple: read Coach's instructions and follow them to a tee. 

In addition to having Coach's tailor-fitted training plan I also have an added level of accountability for my workouts. I'm pretty self-motivated and committed (I have had to be after moving away from my training partners) but now I have the addition motivation of knowing that Coach is always watching (albeit from 1400 miles away). This week I received an email nudge on Wednesday wondering if I'd been on top of the week's workouts. "Yes Coach."  I had completed them all but just hadn't loaded them to Training Peaks.

All in all it was a pretty easy week consisting of about 8 hours of training. I was initially surprised by the low volumes (especially today's 45 min bike ride) but I keep reminding myself that Ironman is a completely different animal. I couldn't help but start glancing ahead at the upcoming weeks workouts which have been loaded and that was all it took for me to realize that I should enjoy these short workouts while I can.

Despite the fact that I train mostly solo I take comfort in knowing that there are about a dozen other Tri Locos following Coach Tim's training plan. I may be physically alone but in my mind I feel the camaraderie and motivation of the rest of the Ironman-hopeful Locos.

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