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!