Ironman CdA Training starts now!

I've procrastinated long enough, and I'm officially at the point where I can't twiddle my thumbs any more.  Well, to tell the truth, I haven't really been slacking too much (I just did a 2.5 hour bike ride on my trainer on Saturday!), it's more that I actually have my training plan in my possession and it just so happens to be a 24-week training plan.  And that's today!

The training plan that I'm going to be using is like many other training plans out there.  It has base, build, and peak portions of it and also has built-in rest.  The plan I have also gives me exact workouts for every training session, which is nice for me.  Without a specific plan, I tend to just coast, or push too hard.  The beauty of the plan I have is that I actually have 10 different levels of my plan, so if at some point I'm finding it to be too easy (not likely) or too hard (very likely), then I can just adjust my training plan according, up or down a level.

Overall, this plan is going to be a few notches above the plan I did for Ironman Arizona.  And that's mainly because I won't be making it up as I go!  Ha!  It starts in Week 1 with 8,100 yards of swimming,  5 hours and 40 minutes of cycling, and 2 hours and 48 minutes of running.  The peak week (which is week 22, or 2 weeks before the race) will top out at 14,325 yards of swimming, 10 hours and 35 minutes of cycling, and 4 hours and 58 minutes of running.  Let's just agree that at this point, week 22 looks to be pretty rough.  But that's why I train, right?

So, rather than post what each workout is going to be (because I don't want to get in any trouble with copyright stuff), I'm going to post a generic weekly schedule of the sport and approximately how long each workout will be.  And so it begins...

Week 1:

Monday - REST (I like the way this plan is looking!)

Tuesday - Swim base intervals (1 hour) and a foundation bike ride (1 hour)

Wednesday - Swim base intervals (1 hour) and a foundation run (45 minutes)

Thursday - Bike/Run brick workout (1 hour total)

Friday - Bike power intervals (1 hour 10 minutes) and Swim fartlek intervals (1 hour)

Saturday - Long bike ride (2 hours 30 minutes) and recovery run (30 minutes)

Sunday - Swim base intervals (1 hour) and long run (1 hour and 10 minutes)

Ok, so I actually just got pretty tired just typing all of that.  That can't be good!  The positive is, I actually already did this exact plan last week...I thought I'd test it out and see if I could handle it.  The difference is, now it's for real!

So there you have it.  Week 1 is all lined up and ready to go.  It's definitely going to be an interesting journey, and I'm sure I'll have some good stories along the way.  Thanks for reading!