Before you sign up for a 70.3 and ever dream of being an Ironman

There are things to consider before you bite the bullet and sign up for your very first Ironman.

First off, you dont have to be a super human athlete to be a finisher but whether you are one or not this race will change, no actually it will turn your world upside down. Temperarorly or perminently, depending on the person and the experience. There are many reasons for someone to be struck by the idea, the health beneifts, feeling of accomplishment, being in an elite group, travel.

Let me tell you what it will take on race day:

Countless hours of training (up to 10 per day), research, gear, a balanced diet, and mental toughness. I say, before you sign up, go on a 3-4 hour bike ride. As a triathlete, you will spend most of both your training time and race time on the bike so you better become friends with it. You also better become comfortable swimming long cast away distances in open water and have feet of steel and knees in good condition for the final run.

I signed up in Dec. and knew that id have to put in at least 15 hours of training a week and that tag teaming that with work was going to take some organizational skills. Most training days lately ive been getting up around 5 to get in a workout and shower before work and then getting home at 6 and throwing in another workout. Weekends are much the same but have included longer blocks and bricks that I cant normally get in. Basically I do more before 10am then a lot of people do all day. My friends are slowly transfering into endurence nuts like myself. Most of all though its the cost of the sport. Almost everything youll need will be expensive and you wont know what will work best for you until you try multiples.

Today I rode longer and harder then I had ever done before. I took my bike up to Winter Park, CO for what ended up being a 38 mile bike ride at 9000ft which included a pretty substantial asscent of about 800ft in 3 miles. I totally bonked at the 1h45min mark which is roughly half of how long id like to be strong on the bike for. When I got off my legs refused to do anything and at that point I couldnt fathem running 3 let alone 13 miles. My feet went numb within the first 10 mins of this ride, possibly due to the 69* mountain temps and me spilling water on my cycle shoes.

On a brighter note, I have solved my bike shipping problems and found a great price on a used Trico Sports Iron Case. This thing is the real deal, almost bullet proof and will give me great piece of mind when I ship my bike to Syracuse for the race.

Continue to push those limits. DS