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| Cheesecake Post IMAZ 2008 |
In the fall of 2007 I had never done any sort of triathlon, though I had been running for a number of years with my longest race being a marathon in Kelowna in 2005. I had only heard stories of Ironman, when my friends sent out this message:
Mike and I will be doing Ironman Arizona and we are going to register today...
Is anyone else in :)
I was pretty tempted but of course was nervous about the difficulty/commitment so I fired back:
Alright, here are my questions:
How many slots are left? Do you guys really think I can do it? How tough is this whole swimming thing, once you start training is it easy to build up swimming endurance, do you have to go front crawl the whole way or do some people use other strokes to rest from time to time? 2.4 miles seems like an awful long way to swim, how long does that take, like 2 hours? And who is the atticmaster?
I think a lot of people are worried most about the swim. Pretty much everyone has biked and run at some point when they are growing up, but actual lap swimming as opposed to just playing around for fun is a lot more rare. Mike said back:
I know that the Ironman Coeur D' Alene sold out within two weeks. I have no idea of how many slots are left but the list of participants grew quickly within the last day.
I am just learning to swim so Kathleen would have to answer the question on the distance and such. What I can tack on though is one girl that we talked to in Coeur D' Alene said that her friend was not a very good swimmer and she trained hard for 8 months and was able to complete it. I had basically no swimming experience and I am going to try it. Maybe not the best role model. There are scuba divers and kayaks to pull you out if you were to start drowning from what Kathleen said. Atticmaster is Guitar Hero Rocker ... Tyler.
The best thing to do is call Kathleen tonight at home. We should be home by 8 PM and then she can convince you and answer all your questions. You have a year to train for it so if you go hard I do not see why you could not do it.
I don't know what Kathleen said when we called her, but I guess I was convinced enough? When one of my friends heard I had signed up he sent me the following email:
Are you crazy?? What possessed you to decide to do a full ironman? You do realize the distances, time and that you have to swim, then bike, then run a marathon, right??
I don't think signing up for IM was that crazy, in hind sight. It is definitely a huge commitment, and a big training leap for someone like me who is not that hard core of an athlete, but as long as you take it seriously and make that commitment it is sure to work out and be a lot of fun.
Once I signed up I had to go from casual jogger to serious enough swimmer/biker/runner to finish an Ironman! In my opinion, these are the key steps in that transformation:
1) Find friends to train with. I once read a blog post that said one of the key indicators of being able to succeed and excel was being able to train alone without a group. I don't know if I agree with that, but I know having friends to train with makes the hard work way easier, and the whole experience fun and far more satisfying than training and racing alone ever could be. There are triathlon clubs and teams in Edmonton too, I know people who like APTS and the west end YMCA offered a triathlon training course last year (though not Ironman.)
2) Buy a good training book. We bought Don Fink's book Be Iron Fit and one of the first things I did was to read it. He includes a training regime we tried to follow and it was a great resource.
3) Join the YMCA! Or a similar gym/fitness facility. You need some place that has a pool you can swim laps in, a track you can run in during the winter (or just tough it out outside), and spin classes.
4) Join a Masters Swim Class. We joined the YMCA masters swim program at the Don Wheaton Y and it was great. Twice a week we went for an hour and a half or so swim workout with a coach who provided workouts. This basically took us from panting and struggling to do a single 25 M lap to being able to swim the full IM swim in Arizona!
5) Do as many spin classes as possible. In the winter spin classes are a great way to start gaining bike skills, and WAY more interesting than biking on the trainer.
6) Buy your equipment. I left this for awhile into my training, no need to buy a lot of the stuff until closer to race day. I bought:
- bike - Cervelo Team Soloist from Way Past Fast (and bike shoes from the same place) (Elements is another good triathlon store in Edmonton)
- bike helmet and bike shorts from MEC
- wetsuit (also from Way Past Fast)
- goggles - I had aquasphere early on in training but eventually switched to a different type. They provided great underwater vision but I found them a little tight which hurt on longer swims.
- Half moon lake in June
- Alberta Challenge at Miquelon Lake in August
Other than that, just get training ASAP, don't push it too hard at first, try to follow the training plan you decide on as best as you can, and go from there.
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| Mike By the Swim Course |
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