The last time I wrote in my blog was November of 2016. I had just quit at the 7 mile mark of the Indianapolis Marathon. After that, I went to Huntsville in December of the same year to run the Rocket City Marathon, while I finished the race, it was mentally grueling. In April of '17, I went to Boston for the third time, expecting to have an amazing race and feeling as fit, or more so, than I ever had. Turns out Boston doesn't exactly care how fit you are and threw me a slider in the dirt that I didn't know how to handle. It was a hot day by marathon standards and I wasn't prepared for that at all. I ran the worst marathon time I'd posted since 2011. With that performance, I was done with racing!!! Finished! Never lacing them up again.......or so I thought!
Oh wait (squirrel), I've got a guaranteed entry to the Chicago Marathon for 2018 (something shiny). Let's get that on the books and see if I can slay this dragon in my head. Chicago was very good to me the first time I ran it, maybe I can duplicate it again! That would turn out to be an impossible task. Training officially started the day that baseball season ended and I made it all of 7 weeks into the training before getting crushed by the dragon! I tried to run a 10k on the 4th of July only to bail out half way through. Then, after a family vacation to Florida, in which I didn't run at all (thinking the break would help), I came back to run 5 more days before totally bailing out on the plan! Cancelled flights and hotel reservations without even so much as a whimper or a second thought. Now, I'm really done!
So, what am I gonna do with all this extra time in my life. Burger week only lasts 1 week. I can't seriously eat like that any other week or I'd weigh 350. For 3 weeks I sat around mostly did nothing. Ran maybe 2 days per week. Rode my bike a couple of times. Ran once or twice more, then rode my bike 2 or 3 more times. Hmmmm......that's actually enjoyable. Maybe I'll buy a road bike and do a bit more riding. At this point, I'm guessing that my wife already knows where this is headed.....she's way smarter than I am!!! I still had no clue.
I buy a road bike in September and start to ride a bit. 20 miles here and there just before the weather turns cold and then I get on the trainer at home for an hour at a time or until my butt can no longer handle the seat on this bike.
Holy crap, these seats SUCK!!! Still running a couple of days per week, 4-5 miles at a time, and now mixing in a couple of days on the bike. By November I'm back to working out at least 5 days per week. I'm feeling a bit better about myself and the fact that I don't have a race to look forward to, and can actually enjoy the run or ride. By Thanksgiving I'm starting to think maybe a triathlon is in the future and I start digging around a bit for more info. By the first week of December, I start swimming 3 to 4 days per week, not having a clue what I'm doing and struggling to swim the length of the pool without drowning! By the middle of the month, I'm thinking very seriously about an Ironman and by Christmas, I'm actually telling people about this crazy idea!!! Before Tricia and I leave for Cancun for our New Year's trip, I register for a race.......Ironman Louisville.......October 13, 2019. Damn! What have I done???
I know going in that this is going to be the most challenging thing I've ever done. Why? Because I don't swim! Like, I can swim the length of the pool, but that's mostly without breathing and I'm positive I can't swim 2.4 miles without breathing.... The first thing I do is reach out to Ironman friends Brad and Emily Rollins. Brad has been coaching for several years and Emily is his prized client, in more ways that one! They are both dedicated triathletes and working folk. They get that there are other things going on in life that sometimes take priority. They both also know how to get to the finish line..........fast. I can manage the life part, I just need to know how to get to the finish line. We talked about getting started the day that I get home from my last baseball game, whether that's the last weekend of the regular-season in May or after the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament at the end of the first week in June. Between January and that time, I'd work to build fundamentals in the pool and some conditioning on the bike. As Brad would say, "we gotta condition that taint!" Oh geez, what am I doing?
During baseball season, it's really tough for me to get into a rhythm with any sort of regular exercise. Yes, from 2015 to 2017, I managed to train for Boston during the bulk of baseball season, but that's not the norm, nor have I ever wanted it to be. Going out for a 22 mile run on Saturday morning before working a 3 hour baseball game is not my idea of a good time. As baseball season starts, I find my way to the pool 4-5 days per week. I add 3-4 days per week on the bike, all of it on the trainer. I back off a great deal on the run as I know that's going to be my strength as we get to the summer training. I decide that I'm not going to be beat by a lesser athlete just because he/she has a better bike setup, so I buy a Tri bike in mid spring and spend all my trainer rides on it getting comfortable being in the aero position.
Emily passes along some of her swim workouts and I try, as best I can, to execute them. I feel like rock in the water and probably look like a flailing cat fighting the water with every stroke. This may be even harder than I thought!
Baseball season wraps up for me the first week in June. The NCAA selected me to work the Regional round of the baseball championship. This year, they sent me to Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Yeah, that's me with a front row seat for a laser to left center.
As Brad and I had discussed, we'd start my training on June 4th, as soon as I got off the plane. I felt as though I had done a good job getting my taint conditioned on the trainer in the spring, but had no clue what I was getting myself into when I got outside to ride. 35 miles, 50 miles, 57 miles, 70 miles.....and the numbers will keep growing. We decide it's important for me to do a couple of shorter distance races. My first triathlon would be the Music City Triathlon Sprint race and oh, what a learning experience this turns out to be.........
...........to be continued.
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