Iron Week Done

It is finished. 140.6 miles over 6 days. It was grueling, it was awesome. I am certainly going to do it again.

Friday I finished off the swim leg with 50 laps in the pool. I hit it endurance style, just got in and cranked out laps. Finished in 26 minutes, which is considerably shorter than I've ever covered that distance before. It was a fantastic workout.

Friday Night we had dinner at my boss's house. It was fantastic, there was a good crowd and we all had a good time. I did have a few beers, but got control of myself when I remembered what I was doing on saturday. Then Kelley and I went to the late show at Goodnight's Comedy club to see Tom Arnold. He was hilarious! Nobody else can talk about how Roseanne stabbed him in the chest with a meat cleaver when he took her Jennie Craig cookies away. I was rolling around laughing so hard. Such a fun night.

Then Saturday I carbed up and went out for a 20 mile run to finish off Iron Week. This was the only 20 mile run on my training schedule before the Tobacco Road Marathon. The first 10 miles were a breeze. I ran through the NC State campus, came out at the Central Prison, found a greenway trail to run on, and headed up St Mary's to my boss's house where we had dinner the night before. From there I ended up combing my way through downtown Raleigh. The streetlights got annoying after a while so I headed back into the residential area. I ended up hitting Churchill Rd right at mile 15. I had no idea that Churchill was the effing hilliest road in Raleigh. but wow. That ended up being the toughest mile by far. Lots of walking there. Then I ended up getting back onto the same side of Wade Ave that I live on and tooled around my neighborhood until the garmin said 20.00 miles. Actually it said 19.98 miles when I hit my house, so I had to run past the neighbor's house and come back to make it an even 20. Finished in 3:37:48.


I'm worn out. Tired. Need more sleep and food. But Iron Week is complete!

So how did Iron week turn out by the numbers? The swims were monday: 1250 yrds in 30 mins, Wednesday 1900 yrds in 47 minutes and Friday was 1250 yds in 26 minutes. That's a 2.4 mile swim leg of 1:43. The bike looked like: Monday 52 miles in 2:33, Tuesday 15 miles in 45 mins, Wednesday 30 miles in 1:26, and Thursday 15 miles in 42 mins. That's a total of 112 miles in 5:26. For the run, I had a 10k on tuesday in 57:58 and the 20 miler on Saturday in 3:37:48 for a marathon time of 4:34:46. If you add those up and don't count the 6 days of transition time, that makes for an Ironman time of 11:43 if my math is correct.

Now my actual expecation for Ironman Florida next year is 14 hours. But I do think it's possible to come close to a 4:30 marathon time at the Tobacco Road in a few weeks.

And what did I think about the IronWeek as a concept? It is awesome. I didn't miss a beat at work, even took an extra night off to take the wife out for a nice dinner. Still covered 140.6 miles in 6 days. I think if I wanted to make it even more challenging I could do it in 4 days. But even my natural reaction that is "if you want to make it more challenging, do it in 1 day at an Ironman race you freak" but that's for next year. If you swim before work, and run/bike over lunch and after work I think it could be done in 4 days. Split the runs up into 6.2, 5, 5, and 10 mile distances and everything but the 10 miler could be done over a lunch break. 4 swims at 1075 (43 laps) each would cover the swim. And the night workouts would be the longest bike rides. Could be 4 @28 miles each, but a 15 mile ride is all I can squeeze in over lunch. So the last day's ride would have to be over lunch. Still, it's possible.

This should not be my last Iron Week. It was so much fun and so cool just knowing the target was raised. I know there are plenty of tri guys out there that bike 300 miles a week anyway, and plenty of runners that hit 50 miles a week all the time. But this method proved several things to me.

The first thing is that the more you do something the faster you will get. The last 15 mile bike ride was the fastest I've covered that distance ever. I've never gotten below 29 minutes swimming 50 laps, the last swim was only 26 minutes. It's amazing how raising your volume really does create speed.

Raising your weekly training volume to that level also reiterates the need to watch fuel and rest times. Eating enough to cover that kind of distance is a must. Getting enough sleep at night is a must. We tend to gloss over those problems and focus on doing the work. What you do to your body when it's not working for you is just as important.

So does this seem like a challenge that you are up for? I can't wait to do it again.