October 1, 2010

This is the first post on my new blog.  I'm not terribly witty but I hope you'll find the story of a regular guy trying to complete an Ironman length triathlon interesting.

So how did I get here?  Early in 2009, I was diagnosed with extremely high blood pressure.  As in, holy crap, you might keel over any second high.  Even though I was playing ice hockey on a regular basis, I was still a big guy.  Most people wouldn't have called me fat per se, but at 6'4, 279 pounds, I was definitely a big guy.  I had done some running off and on but had never really stuck with it.  A month or so later, after being placed on some HBP meds, I bought a proper road bike and began riding with the Louisville Bicycle Club.  Thank goodness for patient ride captains who stayed with me and encouraged me.  Simply put, I fell in love with cycling.

Shortly thereafter, I re-connected with an old high school friend, who also happens to be a serious triathlon race director.  We got talking and I decided that I wanted to try a triathlon.  It took me a while but I did a few sprint length races, including the Motor City Tri in Detroit.  I found tris hard but so much fun.

Fast forward to August 29, 2010.  I volunteered at Ironman Louisville as a finish line catcher.  I saw so many "regular" people finish this race that I started thinking about a crazy idea, "could I do an Ironman?"  2 days later, when registration opened, I entered.

Now I had to decide HOW I was going to get this thing completed.  Did I need a proper tri bike?  What about nutrition? What about a training program?  What was I going to wear?  Dozen of questions were going through my head.  I started surfing tons of websites, reading books, and leaning on a couple local Ironmen that I knew through the LBC.

So step 1, was to surf over to Beginner Triathlete and check out one of the many training programs they had available.  I settled on an endurance based 20 week program that required about 12-15 hours per week.  Of course, I wasn't going to sit on my couch until April.  I was going to keep riding with the LBC and also found a neat GPS-based running application for my iPhone called MiCoach.

I told MiCoach that I'd be doing a half-marathon on January 1, just so it would get me running on a regular basis to start building some running skills.  So adding that to my regular cycling, I thought I'd be building a nice base.  This of course leaves swimming.  Very soon, I'll be investigating some swimming plans to start building that too.  I'm a decent swimmer but want to get beyond decent for the Ironman.

Other decisions I made...

I found a killer deal on a 2010 Kestrel Talon tri bike so that's what I'll be using for training and the race (link).
I'm going to take my time at the transitions, changing into sport specific clothing at each stop.
Hammer Nutrition will be my training and race nutrition.

I don't have a clever way to end this post but I plan on adding updates every few days with training and other updates.