swim, bike, run…and the rest of life…

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Um, yea.  Last fall?  I registered myself for Ironman Wisconsin.  Kind of on a whim.  More of a “just on the weird offchance that I decide I want to do it, then I’ll have that option open” kind of thing.  And then decided not to tell a soul about it, you know, because I’m all about the drama.  Or something like that.

I don’t know that I was ever really serious about doing it.  All along, while secretly wanting to be called an Ironman, there’s a large part of me that has absolutely no desire to put the time and effort needed into the training.  I mean, it’s not like my idea of fun is climbing on my bike for a “short” 3 hour trek after having spent 7 hours in the saddle the day before (and let’s not even mention the running and swimming that most likely was squeezed in there as well).

And so, here I sit:  it’s January and I feel like I ought to make a decision.  I thought it would be an easy decision — don’t do it, never tell anyone that you signed up.  But now… but now… there’s this little voice that wonders if it might be possible.  Wonders if all that’s holding me back is that the enormity of this task scares the pants off me.

And what am I scared of?  Scared of failing – of course.  Scared of being too lazy to train for it the way I’ll need to.  Scared that my body won’t hold up through the training.  Scared that I’ll do all the training and then have something stupid happens that ends my journey before the race is finished.  Scared that I’m not fast enough.  Not committed enough.  Not up to the challenge.  Just not good enough.  And that then – epically – publicly – everyone else will know that too.

Being rational about it, though, the ability to successfully complete an Ironman takes more than just will, heart and a butt of steel.  It requires time.  And resources.  And more time.  And money.  A willingness to forgo a social life.  And some time on top of that, of course.  Coming into play are whether I’d be able to ever get enough sleep to support the long hours of training each week.  And the necessity of having to not only give up softball, but also anything else that didn’t fit into the training plan.  That’s a huge sacrifice.

But in the face of all that, there’s still this whisper, this call to do something great.  Doing something that only a very small percentage of people have ever done has this draw to it, and it’s slowly reeling me in, robbing me of all logical thought.

And so…. well, maybe… perhaps… I just… might… possibly… train for (gulp!)… an Ironman.

Maybe.

I’ve done my homework:  I’ve looked at the training plans.  Hyperventilated over the number of really, really, REALLY long bike rides I’d have to get in over the summer.  Grew physically tired looking at some of the peak 20-hour training weeks. And have now started mentally rearranging my life to accommodate the craziness.  I’ve tentatively told my softball teams this would be a year of just being a sub.  I’ve talked to my boss and got the okay to work the later shift one day a week to ensure that I’d get at least one full night’s sleep a week.  And – most importantly – I’ve begun the work of putting in base miles to prepare for training to start at the very end of April.

So, I guess – right now at least – I’m in.  Kind of.  We’ll see how things go between now and the official start of training.  I totally am reserving the right to reclaim my place in reality, though, and back out.  Yes, that’s my big ol’ disclaimer to my little announcement.

So… who wants to go for a bike ride?  Just something short?  You know, like, 7 hours or so?

laura me, race, training, tri me;race

laura me, race, training me, racing

This felt like my first “big” weekend with the whole marathon training thing.  One weekend is now in the books.  And an incomprehensible number more to go.

On Saturday, I had to run 7 miles at marathon pace. 

First off – marathon pace??   I have absolutely NO idea what marathon pace may or may not be.  Well – that’s not true – there’s the marathon pace I’d LOVE to run.  There’s the marathon pace I’d be pretty excited about running.  There’s even the marathon pace that I’d be pretty satisfied with.  And then… there’s the marathon pace that lives in reality instead of in my dreams.

So, I decided to start off at what I thought was a conservative pace and get faster from there to see if I could find a “sweet spot”.  That turned out to be one of those “good in concept, not so good in implementation” ideas.  I started out somewhere around 10 minute miles, and moved down to about 9:30′s for the last few miles.  And, as it turns out, anything sub-10 is more a of tempo pace for me these days.  How frustrating!

But, in the end, that run felt good.  I worked, sweat a lot, finished up feeling like I had accomplished something.

And then – Sunday.  14 miles.  Uh oh.

I decided to tackle it in two 7-mile loops to give me a break to refuel (and, uh, defuel, if you know what I mean).  The first loop? Not exactly my definition of “fun”.  Legs started out feeling heavy and sore and my mind was set on trying to get me to stop.  Running at my long run pace was difficult – and long run pace is supposed to be the speed where you feel like you could run forever.  Me?  I could barely fathom finishing off the first 7 mile loop.

But – I somehow managed to squash my basic instincts to stop and toughed it out.  And once I hit home and took in some more nutrition and water (and took a minute to stretch out my incredibly tight achilles and calves), the second loop didn’t seem quite so daunting.  Or, at least, I couldn’t come up with a good, believable excuse not to go out and run it.

The second loop was an interesting little thing.  The first three miles went by with a “whoosh!” kind of feeling.  Like, when you’re driving somewhere and look up and realize that you’ve missed your exit by 20 miles.  All of a sudden I was done with 10 miles.

Miles 11-12… working, working, working… but getting it done and feeling mostly okay.  The end of the run seemed tantalizingly near.

Miles 13-14?  Well, let’s just say that every car that passed, I was hoping it was someone I knew (or even just a car I recognized) so that I could flag it down and tell them to bring my broken, beaten body back home.

And that was only 14 miles.  Last time I checked?  Yea, a marathon is 26 miles. 

It freaks me out that this itty bitty little 14-miler did that to me.  That it pushed me to that place that I only associate with the end of half ironmans and the last few miles of a full marathon.  Seems to spell trouble, doesn’t it?

And then I rationalize:  I ran 7 miles the day before.  I didn’t eat like I should have the night before.  I ran much later than I usually do.  That all makes a difference, right?

I suppose I’ll find out.

You know, in one of those eleventy billion weekends I have ahead of me.

laura me, race, training me, race

So…

Vegas.  December.   Marathon.  26.2 miles of suffering misery challenge and wonderfulness.

The training is just starting to pick up and become more hard work, sweat, aches and pains and less about the pure joy of running.  And it’s not like I’m even doing the Really Long Runs yet – just the Itty Bitty Long Runs so far.  This week, in fact, is the first time I even edge over the half marathon distance.

Things so far have been going pretty well, considering that I went from full training down to 50% mileage down to 0% mileage and then sky-rocketed to “Hello MARATHON TRAINING!  Here I come, ready or not!”.  I’m pretty pleased that my ankle hasn’t really caused me any trouble yet (though it’s a sneaky bastard, so I’m keeping an eye on it) and I haven’t managed to mangle any other body part yet.

This weekend scares me a little bit, though.  I’ve been following Hal Higdon’s marathon training plan, and the hallmark of this training is the marathon-paced run on Saturday followed by a long run on Sunday.  As a concept, this is pretty revolutionary to me:  I’m a hard-core rest-before-rest-after the long runs kind of gal.  So, to go out on Saturday and put down 7 miles of marathon-paced running before hitting the pavement for 14 more on Sunday makes me just a teensy bit nauseous.

But it’ll be good, right?  Sure, my legs will be tired and all whiny when I go out Sunday.  But that just means that when race day actually hits — and after I’ve taken the requisite rest days — my legs will feel like wings.  Just like if I drank a Red Bull – I’ll have wings! (and no, I get no money or free product for that plug…heh…).

Until the wings grow in, though… if you see me on the side of the road, napping or otherwise not moving forward any longer, please call the numbers on my Road I.D.  You’ll do that for me, right?

laura me, training me, race