This past week has been quite terrible on the personal front. I’ve found out some pretty life changing news, that still isn’t all worked out quite yet, which has led to increased stress levels and a major lack of sleep. While I’m NOT writing today to discuss any of that, it just so happened to time out perfectly to work with a week of training for Ironman Tulsa that I was planning on filming. So, I continued on with that plan, and while it certainly wasn’t easy, working through training AND filming, was a nice distraction to have.

Preparing for an Ironman is quite demanding on a lot of different fronts. The time commitment alone is quite substantial. During the good times each workout is pretty enjoyable, if it wasn’t, nobody would go through this. However, in the bad times, you sometimes need to push yourself to get started, to continue to get up early, to put in the work. While getting started is the hardest part of it, once you’re going, things do get easier. Your body responds, causing your mind to respond, elevating your mood and clearing your head. All the stress and aggravation of the day can be put into those shorter high intensity effort days, while the long burn sessions really leave you in a good state of soreness. The culmination of muscle fatigue and soreness is a great reminder that your are still alive and fully in control of how you are going to choose to respond to the situations in your life.

Yes this has been a terrible week. I’m thankful for the training schedule to help get me through it. Stick to the plan and keep on pushing.

Moving forward now I’ll have another 10 weeks building up to a one last very large effort, then scaling back down with a 3 week taper before race day. Very excited to get the bike outside soon.

Workout Summary:

Monday – Feb 17th:

25 minute Strength and Conditioning session, started with leg press, extensions, curls. Moved on to core with side bends, hanging leg raises and decline sit-ups. Next was lunges on a balance ball, non weighted then weighted. Finished up with ball crunches

1650 yards group swim session with an additional 50 yards to start and finish for a warm up / cool down.

• 2x 250
• 6x 50
• 2x 250
• 10x 25

Tuesday – Feb 18th:

4.25 mile run with Elsa at a comfortable pace (7:55) – very windy and cold, about 3 degrees with wind chill.
Bike session was the Zwift 2020 Tri #5 VO2max session – pushing a 170w average.

Wednesday – Feb 19th:

Flipper Swim – did 500 yards mixed bag to start, group session was:

• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 kick board
• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 flutter kick on back
• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 dolphin kick on back
• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 flutter kick left arm out
• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 flutter kick right arm out
• 50 swim 5sec rest 50 swim into 50 flutter kick both arms out
• 100 kick board
• 2 x 25 underwater

The run was cold -3 wind chill, but Elsa and I got it done. Did some intervals, with a best pace of 4:25 and averaged 7:29 over 4.1 miles

Thursday – Feb 20th:

The polo was like a sauna as the exhaust system wasn’t working, but I got some solo laps in before the group swim with alternating tennis balls and hand paddles. Then the main group set was:

• 500
• 400
• 300
• 200 as 25 moderate 25 sprint alternating
• 100 as 50 moderate 50 sprint

The run went great, wasn’t too cold out and it was nice to get into a comfortable pace, averaging 8:07

Friday – Feb 21st:

Swam about 300 yards in before polo, then worked hard during the game, a lot of short bursts, ultimately in a losing effort in the game though.

Great bike ride session at night, low cadence strength building with Zwift ‘2020 Tri # 1 Strength Development’ resulting in an average of 158w

Saturday – Feb 22nd:

4 mile run at easy pace solo before Wausau seemed to have woken up, was completely solo downtown, which was quite amazing – averaged 8:55

3900 meter swim (4265yd) at a good pace, felt comfortable and averaged 1:37/100 yards, the set was as follows:

• 300 WU
• 6×50
• 100 quick 700 moderate
• 200 quick 600 moderate
• 300 quick 500 moderate
• 400 quick 400 moderate
• 100 CD

10 mile run at easy pace with Andy where we got a bit of hills work in too – averaged 9:00

Sunday – Feb 23rd:

Long bike day, had 4 hours in my head, plan said 60 miles, so I cut the difference at 65 miles and 3 hours 30 minutes, just over my target watt output at 147 average.

Totals for the Week

• Swam 5 times for 6.17 miles in 3 hours 8 minutes
• Ran 5 times for 29.28 miles in 4 hours 6 minutes
• Biked 3 times for 98.43 miles in 5 hours 27 minutes