An Ironman triathlon is one of the great events to target for any endurance sports enthusiast. It has been around since the late 70’s when Navy Commander, John Collins argued with friends about who is fitter, a long-distance open water swimmer, a 100-mile cyclist or a marathon runner. Why not combine all three into one event? Whoever completed it would be considered a true Ironman. Thus, Ironman triathlons were born.
Scott Tinley, one of the founders of the sport, once said that there are generally three things you can do in the modern world that will really strip away everything and expose what your character truly is – military combat, high altitude mountaineering and Ironman racing. Combat and Himalayan climbing may be out of reach for most of us but doing an Ironman is possible for many. We live in a comfortable world mostly. We rarely get to explore our mental and physical limitations and see what we are truly made of. Ironman is a great way to see what lies beneath all of the layers that society has built up around you. Ironman offers no guarantees. You may train for months and months and end up not finishing. The weather may be awful, you might lose your goggles on the swim or have flat tires on the bike. You inevitably will have to overcome something, especially yourself, to get to that finish line. That is the reason you see so many emotional tears at the finish line of an Ironman. Everyone from the fastest pro to the last place finisher has had to dig deep an overcome adversity to make it to that line.
Ironman is at its heart an adventure race. It starts with 2.4 miles of open water swimming. This is the crux for many. Open water is scary. You can drown. There is physical contact, cold water, wildlife and a large distance to cover away from shore. Swimming is the entry barrier to the remaining events. The fact that the swim is wild gives Ironman racing its character. Getting up at 4am and hurling yourself into freezing water at 7am for a 2.4 mile day will get anyone’s heart racing. You have to overcome plenty of fear and self-doubt to complete that swim.
The cycling leg is the fun part. 112 miles is a true challenge for any cyclist. Add in sun, wind, and hilly terrain and you have the makings of a great cycling challenge. And this is only part two of the three acts. Cycling training can take you places and you can see sights you might otherwise not see, like a snow-covered Sonoran Desert at 6am on a February morning. You also learn to deal with mechanical issues, like fixing a flat tire or a rubbing brake. Being far from home with just a few tools and some knowhow can feel liberating, empowering and a bit scary. The confidence and fitness that you gain on those long training rides come in handy on race day.
The marathon leg is where your soul really gets exposed. You may get hot, tired, bonked. You may feel sick, have blisters and be sunburned. What do you do? Everything inside of you says stop running, sit in the shade, drop out at the next aid station. This is where you have those deep conversations with yourself. How do you want to look back on this moment? Do you want to give in the deamons and get immediate relief or press on and avoid years of regret? These are the internal conversations we rarely have to face in day-to-day life. By entering an Ironman, you are embracing the fact that you will reach this moment and have these thoughts. There is no avoiding it. Are you up for it? You won’t know until somewhere out there on that marathon journey.
So, take up the challenge and do an Ironman. It may be the hardest thing you ever voluntarily take on. See what your made of and embrace the journey. For every year you wait, you will just be one year older when you do. Roll the dice and put yourself out there. Do you have what it takes to be an Ironman? Find out.
Congratulations to Adela Moore, Frank Smith and Greg James.
Adela raced the May the 4th 5K this past weekend and finished in 31:48 while wearing a slick Princess Leia costume!
Frank and Greg raced the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH. Frank finished in 5:12 while Greg finished in 6:10. Frank and Greg are lifelong marathon runners and are members of a group that has logged thousands of marathons. The photo below includes Frank Smith , Phyllis Smith and Greg James. The people in the photo below have completed 3,363 marathons/ultras!
What a great weekend of racing! I especially want to congratulate Hannah Warde who raced the London Marathon on Sunday. Hannah finished the iconic race in 5:32 despite still recovering from injuries after being thrown from a horse just three weeks ago! She showed great determination and resiliency to finish the training , endure the travel and complete the race! Nice job Hannah!
London Marathon – UK
Hannah Warde – 5:32
Kentucky Derby Marathon – KY
Frank Smith – 5:18 – 5th in AG!
Choccolocco 25K Trail Run – AL
Craig Conley – 3:51
Cactus Man Olympic Tri – AZ
Traci Jensen – 2:44 – 3rd in AG!
Jon Byron – 2:27 – 7th in AG!
Cactus Man Sprint Tri – AZ
Joan McGue – 1:59- 1st in AG! Joan has been racing in Tempe Town Lake since 2002!
Congratulations to Keith Munion and Joan McGue!
Keith raced the Flint Hills 80 mile gravel bike race this past weekend. This Kansas race was a preparation race for the famous Unbound 200 miler that Keith is racing in May. On a rainy, muddy day (see photos), Keith finished the 80 miler in an impressive time of 4:55.
Joan McGue raced the Cherry Blossom 5K in Washington DC with 6,000 others! She raced with her daughter for the first time and finished in a time of 36:54. This was fast enough for 9th of 33 in her AG! Way to go Joan!
When we periodize our training as endurance athletes, knowing what intensity we are working at is critical to making sure we are doing the right type of training at the right time in relation to our big races or objectives. Keeping intensity low builds our aerobic capacity and fat burning capacity. Exercising at a medium intensity builds our connective tissue strength and muscular endurance. Working hard at lactate threshold or above improves our lactate tolerance and speed. So, how do we know how hard we are working?
For many decades and even today, we have used rating of perceived exertion as a way to measure intensity. We basically defined the efforts as easy, medium, hard, etc. This is how athletes for the better part of the 20th century trained. It works well, especially for an experienced athlete who has plenty of experience exercising at all levels on the intensity spectrum. For most of us, though, when we use perceived exertion as our primary way to measure our intensity, we end up gravitating towards a medium effort in all workouts. A medium effort feels productive. We sweat, we feel like we worked somewhat hard. We didn’t kill ourselves but we didn’t just jog either. The problem is that we never go slow enough to fully develop our aerobic efficiencies and fat burning capacity and we never go hard enough to improve our ability to push lactate. The end result is that we stay fit and healthy but our race performances are always the same – we plateau.
Using a heart rate monitor allows us to have something more empirical than perceived exertion so that we can keep our easy workouts easy and when it’s time to go hard we go really hard and avoid having every workout gravitate towards that medium effort. Heart rate based training has been the gold standard since the early 1990s and still is today. We’ll discuss specific monitors and what training zones are in a future post.
