Monday, June 27, 2011

I have to apologize for a previous post. THIS is actually how you train for an Ironman

WTF was I thinking when I wrote THIS POST?!?!? "In case you wanted to know what training for an Ironman looks like."

Cuz that was NOT what training for an Ironman looks like. Keep reading, and you will REALLY see what training for an Ironman looks like.

I spent 5 days in Lake Placid at my coach's training camp. There were maybe a dozen of us campers (I wrecked the age curve by a good 10+ years), but the smaller the group, the better, especially when you are with YOUR COACH who is the brain behind the plan. This means you get a lot of one on one time where he can address YOUR issues.

I will keep this as brief as possible.

Wednesday:
Arrived, quickly unpacked and we were in the water for 1.2 miles of Mirror Lake. Bam. Done. Dinner.




Thursday:
7AM: 2 hour trail run. Coach E is all about adventure. Mother nature all weekend was all about rain. Well I like rain cuz it keeps me cool and I can go faster. We did a 12 mile run which included quite the ascent to Avalanche Lake.

Looks like we jumped off a cliff at the top!

Eat, cleanup, BIKE: We did one loop of the bike course minus the out and back section. Coach grouped us up and we did Indian sprints on the bike. Boy did we cover the flats of Route 9A in record time!

Eat, cleaup, SWIM: Swam the entire buoy line this time, which is longer than the actual course for 1.6 miles.

Eat, cleanup (shower this time), DINNER. Slept hard....

Friday:
This day can only be described as epic and as the hardest 75 miles of my cycling career. I have climbed Mt. Ventoux two times. That is by far the biggest and steepest climb I have ever done. So I know what a serious Hors Category climb is. But! That is all I did on those two seperate occasions. 15.5 miles of climbing and done. This day? We climbed Whiteface (8 miles @ 8%, 3500 feet of elevation),

It was SO foggy AND cold at the top of Whiteface!
THEN! we did a bit extra (as in chase after my 8 time Kona completer coach) THEN we did a backwards loop of the course. For those of you who don't know about the Lake Placid course, there is the Keene Descent, which is a 5.5 mile freebie screaming downhill. You can hit 50+ going down that thing! Guess what it is like climbing it? After 4 hours of riding which included 8 miles @ 8%? It SUUUUUUUUUCKS! I think I got my first gray hair on that ride....

I immediately got into some dry clothes and marched down to the Downtown Diner for food. I was freaking hungry!!!

Before

After
The waiter was impressed.

Cleaned up, then 2.4 mile swim. This is actually the longest I have ever swam either open water or in the pool. It honestly wasn't that bad. My brain hurt by the end. Could have been the three head on collisions with the idiots who were on the wrong buoy line coming back to shore or my goggles were squeezing my head by the end of it. 1:10:00. Not bad considering this was open water swim #3 in 3 days and it was after the hardest and hilliest 75 miler of my life...

Saturday:
So the legs are shot. Sitting down on the saddle is now a joke. What does Coach have us do? Just ride 112 miles or the ENTIRE Lake Placid course on the bike then drop an hour run in some hilly trails. Remember how I mentioned the rain? I got dumped on for the first 56 miles and froze even in arms and knee warmers and vest and hat, so much so that I did a complete change of clothes for loop #2. Then the fucking sun came out and roasted me on the 2nd loop when I am wearing a thicker vest! hahaha!

The best part of the day was towards the end of the 2nd loop when these dudes past me. Somehow they mentioned to me, "yeah, we did 2 loops yesterday, but only one today." I could see their egos knocking me off the bike. I calmly responded with, "We did Whiteface and rode the course backwards yesterday, then we are doing 2 loops today." Their jaws dropped. WIN! Their egos suddenly popped...

This was not the fastest 112 of my life, but the fact that I got it in after what we had done in so far, I was patting myself on the back.

The brick run sucked at first, but Coach led us onto some awesome trails and my legs finally opened up and I completely forgot that I had just ridden 112 miles. Hoping for this on race day!

Sunday:
2.5 hour run. This actually turned out to be the easiest day. Yeah, it hurt, cuz everything was adding up at this point, but I guess 2.5 hours seems like a short walk in the park considering we had done 5-7 hours of training the past three days.

Had to hit the road by 11, but I needed to stop and get one last section of one of my favorite parts of the course. This just shows what the atmosphere looked like all weekend.



Got home and Coach had written us all a thank you email for jobs well done and positive attitudes. I responded with:

"That was a GREAT camp! I came away smiling and super confident in abilities I didn't know I had in me. Prior to camp, did I believe I could ride 230 miles in 3 days including the hilliest 75 miles of my life plus 36 miles of running + 10,000 yards of swimming over 4 days? NOPE! But now I know I can. So thank you for bringing that out in me."

Total weekly volume: 12,152 yards swam, 247.62 miles biked, 43.21 miles ran. 25 hours of training.

THIS is what training for an Ironman looks like!

19 comments:

  1. That is epic Jon!

    You gotta be wasted right now - just sick volume! Wow!

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  2. you are an Ironman MONSTER!! You are going to eat up the course come July 24th! Congrats!

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  3. That is so awesome Jon! You are Superman!

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  4. ummmm I have nothing haha. So 1 month out, just beat the body to shit... got it :) Lesson learned and will adjust my schedule.

    Great job man. Shocked if you are even walking or out of bed today hahaha!

    Keep up the awesome work :) Your time is coming buddy!

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  5. I guess after all that it feels like your taper started today. (I'm guessing it really starts in another week?)

    I'm curious, where did you stand in terms of ability in that group of 10? Pretty evenly matched?

    I'm not going to be surprised when we finally see your post about signing up for a double iron. 2013?

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  6. I can't even wrap my head around that volume or difficulty. Its completely off the charts. Congrats on your super duper extra hard weekend. Extra congrats for finishing it well and coming out thinking it was fun. Craziness. You are so ready for LP!!

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  7. I think my quads cramped up reading this post. Epic volume and IMLP is going to be a great day!

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  8. correction: this is what JON'S training for an Ironman looks like. You put me to shame. I'm super impressed! You are going to KILL IT at Lake Placid!

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  9. Jon, you're the man! Way to go on an awesome training weekend. I'm just glad you're still alive!!! Get's some rest in there somewhere.

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  10. Jon, that is unbelievable. Seriously.

    I guess you're going in to LP pretty much 'more than' ready. Nice work!

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  11. GOOD. GOD.

    What an epic weekend. You are so ready for LP it's nuts. 25 hours of training in a long weekend makes my head spin.

    I would really love to go to a camp before IMWI. It wouldn't be with my coach, but since you had such a great experience and feel prepared maybe I'll suck it up and make it happen.

    Can't wait to see how you kill it on race day!

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  12. Wow, sounds like you destroyed everything! You are definitely ready for the ironman!

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  13. First congrats on the week, that is amazing!!!

    Which leads me to moaning and groaning, I am hating training right now, and I read what I still have to look forward too??? This isnt fun anymore

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  14. WOW!!!! I can not even respond to this....except to say you will smoke the course race day!

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  15. You are going to so rock LP!! Holy crap, what a weekend!!

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  16. Epic! So jealous of the swim in that lake and trail running. Great job! Can't wait to stalk you next month!

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  17. And all of a sudden my brick adventure in Madison seems like a play date for preschoolers... haha :)

    What a weekend! You are totally going to rock LP!

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  18. And I thought I had an epic weekend with SUAR, MissZippy and Jill.

    Nice job man. That is some crazy stuff right there and why you are going to be a F*(&ING IROMAN.

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  19. SICK SICK SICK
    LOVE IT
    bro ur totally on it. Adirondack tested. way to put up some serious serious training....those hills!!
    congrats on crushing it. agree with others you are totally gonna rock LP.
    Sorry I am slow - having touble finding time to throw up a post but doin good / gettin training in...might have a breather after next weekend??
    be well keep it up

    D

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