How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time and that is as close as you can come to summing up how you race an Iron Man. It is a daunting looking experience from the outside, but once the gun goes off, it seems to shrink in size. Suddenly you are in the moment and focusing on directly what is in front of you and not the last mile of the 140.6 that needs to be completed. And that is partly how you learn to enjoy and appreciate the race is by experiencing it one mile at a time.
Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful course and I am looking forward to going there again. The swim is two loops of a 1.9 kilometre rectangle in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Last time they actually made the swim optional due to very windy conditions. There were some rather large waves which made for a challenging swim.
The bike course is scenic and a bit technical. Driving the course the day before was one of the best decisions I made as I got a sense of some of the hills and tight turns. You really have to watch your gearing. There are some steep declines with sharp turns and all of a sudden you are heading back up a hill. If you haven’t made the proper adjustments you can find yourself in the wrong gear trying to slug it up a hill with no momentum.
To be honest I can’t remember much about the run as I was pretty knackered by the time I got to it. I do recall it being fairly flat with only one hill of any consequence. I do remember that there were a lot of people on the course and they were awesome. Coeur d’Alene really makes a big deal of this event and the support is fantastic.
Last week I finished up with 12 ½ hours of good quality training, broken down as follows:
7,100 metres of swimming (3 swims)
47 miles of running (4 runs)
101 miles of biking (4 rides)
Although I am light on the biking I am still feeling like I am putting in quality sessions and getting the most out of my limited time.
The race is now 7 weeks away so the plan is to keep the volume in this range, stay healthy and start trialing my race day nutrition plans. I am going to the city on Friday to get some supplies so I will pick up some of the supplements I will need.
Have a great day!
2 comments:
Solid training Garry. I haven't quite progressed to eating an elephant but hopefully i'll get halfway there this year.
You're doing the time and will gain the benefit come race time. You seem to have alot of animals to contend with lately!
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