Getting started

Since I set up the donation page, I thought some people besides myself might be interested in how I am preparing for the ironman. I might also post other random things here from time to time, and probably keep things up after the race too. Or this could end up abandoned like 99% of other blogs. We'll see where it goes.

Anyway, I got started doing triathlons just a little over 4 years ago with the Penn State club. Since then I've done about 20, most recently collegiate nationals, where I came in 41st with a time of 2:04, which probably means nothing to most of you right now...to put that in context its about 15 minutes slower than the guy who won the olympic trials later that day goes on that type of course.

I signed up for the ironman almost a year ago but I only began really specific training in the last couple of weeks, so I'm counting on whatever shape I was in for collegiate nationals to carry over. Although the races are very different distances, and will be run at very different paces, most of the training is actually the same. The only difference is adding some longer bike rides to get to the point where 112 miles doesn't take so much out of me that I can't run 26 miles. Also, adding some longer runs, like regular marathon training, will help in the second half of the run immensely.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of ironman vs. olympic distance (collegiate nationals)
swim
Olympic: 0.9 miles, swim as hard as you can to stay on the feet of the fast swimmers
Ironman: 2.4 miles, still try to draft but that's mostly to save energy, there's a long day ahead!

bike
Olympic 24.8 mi - bike as hard as you can without completely trashing your legs
Ironman 112 mi - easy to steady pace - probably 70% of the effort of an olympic distance but because wind resistance is the cube of the speed, this will only be about 2 mph slower.

run
Olympic 6.2 mi - run as hard as you can, this usually is only about 1-2 min slower than I could do for a standalone 10K
Ironman 26.2 mi - run at an easy pace because by mile 20, easy pace will be as hard as I can go

So, there is a huge difference between the paces and effort levels in a 2 hour race vs. a 10 hour race, as you might expect. There is also the 4th component - eating. Doing an ironman will burn about 7500-8000 calories and I will need to take in about 2000 on the bike and 1000 on the run to avoid the "bonk". The rest will be made up in the post race buffet.