Ironman Arizona 2012, Let it Begin

I have attempted to set up my training as the textbooks say, but I have never been successful. I have written weekly plans with specific dates and have not been disciplined enough to follow them. Usually, I can put together a rough workout schedule, but this year there was something different. A little 7 pound 2 ounce beautiful baby boy named Daelen entered the picture. He decided to enter the world 5 weeks early and come May 27th instead of June 30th. I found myself fairly busy playing catch-up: putting together baby swings, buying burp cloths and attempting to find out where the owner’s manual was for this little joy.

Daelen Mathew Peele still i the hospital and 1 day old here

In all of the chaos, I failed to get a workout in for almost two months. A week and a half ago, my “I have to complete an Ironman in four months” alarm went off, and so far I am in my most disciplined training set of days in memory. This has not been an easy thing with work and my wonderful wife still on maternity leave with Daelen. I swam 4 times, ran 4 times, and biked on a trainer 4 times. My swims have progressed from 5 sets of 250 yards over an hour to 2500 yards in 50 minutes. My run has progressed from a 100 minute 8 mile run to a 79 minute 8 mile run. The bike has gotten easier and my breathing is starting to adjust with my renewed cardio. I am working on core exercises every time I swim, and I even hit LA Fitness on the way home from work yesterday after an 11 hour duty day with 4 flights.

There is one other important detail to note here. I do not have my trusted training partner to push for the same goal as me. When I was unable to do Ironman Coeur D'Alene, I missed out on the last chance for the year to do full Ironman training with the Firefighter. This means it's time to grow up and commit to training solo. I'm actually excited for this. On long workouts, I have a lot more to think about with my family and little boy and football season is coming up so I can listen to fantasy football podcasts. I have always depended on training with others, but on race day you are by yourself. Hopefully it is going to prove invaluable to have done a lot of the workouts that way.

My plan is simple and with a specific focus. I will do my best to only have one true rest day a week until November. I will swim at least once a week working towards getting my 2500 yard time into a 1:05 Ironman pace. I will focus my running on getting 8 to 10 mile runs under a 9 minute pace and I will keep working on getting stronger on the bike while working on my core. This is until September. From then on I will keep doing the same kind of swimming (maybe increasing to 3000 yards per workout) and then spending 2 months building distance to marathon and 112 mile bike range. I don't think this is the best way of doing things, but it does me no good to increase distances when I am only now getting a handle on these short workouts.

I weigh 195 pounds right now (down from 200). I am hoping to thin up and put absolutely zero emphasis on weight training. This will help me get lighter and stay as fresh as possible for my workouts. I will keep you updated on how this plan works out. I have never waited this long to start from a zero base and not one of my workouts this last 10 days or so has felt easy. They say sprinters can run long distance, so I'm hoping working harder on these shorter workouts for another month very hard will help that prove true. Eight miles is no sprint on the run, but next to a marathon it might as well be. As a reference, I’m using a new book I'm reading: Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week by Week Training Guide: Plans, Scheduling, Tips, and Workout Goals for Triathletes of All Levels by Matt Fitzgerald. This is a good reference, but there are no plans for my particular situation. For those of you thinking of doing a race, but like me are bad at coming up with a training schedule, this is a winner. It does an excellent job of helping for all performance levels and all distances.

Life never lets me attack one of these races the same way. My first Ironman involved a heart virus, my third a new job and a broken bike, this one a tight timeline and a baby Daelen. The finish line is worth the journey though. So as I said before, “Let it Begin."