Praying and Running

IRONMAN training calls to mind a lot of things: long days of grinding on long rides or long runs or long rides followed by long runs, early bed times for early mornings at the pool, jam packed weekends of training, and of course weight gain. Wait, weight gain? That's right, weight gain. I know this from experience. Before I started training for IRONMAN I didn't believe you could workout 15-20 hours per week and gain weight. But since IRONMAN races last all day long, one of the biggest challenges for an athlete is being able to take in and digest a days worth of nutrition while cycling and running. Like all other facets of IRONMAN, this requires training. So unlike marathon training where I finish my workouts in a calorie deficit and once or twice a week in a large calorie deficit, I finished a lot of my IRONMAN workouts in a negligible deficit and I was always eating either in preparation for a workout or for recovery from a workout. All that being said. I am up about 8 o...

It's been 3 weeks since IRONMAN Louisville (read the race report here ) and I'm tired of watching my fitness slide. I have laid out my plans for 2018 and I am recovered so this morning it was back to work. First I have to preface the "I am recovered" bit. My fatigue has returned to a state that will allow me to resume hard training. My left knee on the other hand, is still a bit cranky. I can ride my bike, no trouble at all but I can only run for about 20 to 25 minutes at a time before my knee gets really mad and won't let me go any further. I'm planning another post about my goals for 2018 but, in the interest of brevity here, the first goal for the year is to go after a half marathon PR. My current PR is 1:18:56 and the course I set that on seems to have been a bit short. My goal race is the Sam Costa half-marathon on March 24th, 2018 . That course consistently measures long by GPS. It's certified though and we all know GPS is not as accurate as the ...

On Sunday, October 15th, 2017 I raced my first full distance Ironman in Louisville Ky with about 2300 other people. I didn't post much about the training leading up to it because quite simply I didn't have the time or energy. So for a quick recap of my training; Training started on May 1st. I am always in marathon shape and haven't needed to build up my long run in years, however, I was basically starting at 0 with the bike and swim. That being the case, my main focus for both was simply building up the specific endurance needed to complete a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike ride in a reasonable time. The weekly training hours ramped up from 12 to 20 over the course of the cycle.  Fast forward to October 15th, 2017 4:00 AM. I slept like a baby and felt good when I woke up for breakfast. I had taken stuff to make peanut butter banana overnight oats. I use  this  basic recipe from fitfoodies with 2 exceptions; I use real milk and powdered peanut butter. I also had...