So it begins.....

First, February's totals:

Swim: 2650 m, 1 swim

Bike: 84.5 miles, 5 rides

Run: 60.45 miles, 11 runs, 2 races

Strength: 4 workouts

Yoga: 3 times

Not anything spectacular on the total front. With 2 races there was lots of tapering. and recovery time. and travel days. The Krispy Kreme challenge was an interesting dissapointment, and the PR I put up at the Myrtle Beach half marathon was amazing. So 15.9 of those running miles were in races. I fell into a pattern of some kind of long run, interval run, and tempo run, one bike ride/weight day, and maybe another bike ride. But mostly, I knew February was the last time I would be able to relax for a long time because....

IRONMAN training began today. Yes, that's why you see a single swim up there in the totals. For my swim I'm joining the RAM swim team to practice M-W-F at 5:30 am. The first workout had a good warmup, two main body sets and a cooldown for about 2650 meters total. The pool was fantastic, the other people I met seemed like a lot of fun, the coaches were great. I wasn't the slowest swimmer out there. It was the first time I had been in the water since October at least, and it felt good to get wet again. I was sharing a lane with this old black guy with a big scruffy beard like a fuzzy Fred Sanford. He noticed my big tattoo and wondered if I got that because people call me "tree". I said no without explaining the whole theory behind the tattoo. He said that now people are going to start calling me Tree, starting with him. So for the rest of the morning it was "when's your ironman Tree?" and "you coming back wednesday Tree?" so OMG I think it's going to stick. Too funny!

I'm using this plan I found online. I like it because the workouts are laid out in minutes, so I know what my times will be and I can track the mileage covered in those minutes. So tomorrow has 50 minutes on the bike and 35 minutes running in separate workouts. We'll have to see how many miles I can cover in that time.

I logged the entire training plan into a spreadsheet, then entered my race distances on there as well for the races I'm signed up for. If you want a copy of the spreadsheet I use just give me an email address; it's a format I worked out a few years ago and will readily share. Looking at the spreadsheet gives a whole new perspective to the numbers behind an ironman training plan:

• 401 workouts total
• covers 249 days
• 36,687 minutes total (611.45 hours) total training time
• starts today (2/28/11) and ends 11/3/11, 2 days before IMFL
• The longest week is 18.5 hours
• The shortest week is 8.25 hours (this week)
• It starts with 29 workouts over the first 18 days. Most are 2-a-days, but there are no days off. No rest until day 19.
• Most mondays and fridays are only swimming. The workouts are short, it's supposed to get me used to the schedule without putting real pressure on endurance this week. I have to ease into this early morning stuff, and haven't done 2-a-days in months.

So now I've got one workout down, only 400 to go. The end is in sight! The countdown is on.

This also marks the end of the Monday Morning Naked Weight (MMNW). I didn't get a real weigh in this morning, so I'm going to call the final weight at 178, exactly 30 lbs less than my starting weight (208.8 lbs), and 19.5% body fat is 9 points lower than my starting point (28.5%). I'm sure that I will check my weight and body fat % regularly during Ironman training, and I still think that they both will continue to drop. I am very proud of the way the weight loss program turned out.

My original goal was to get down near 160 lbs and into single digit body fat using the basic adapted plan from the Racing Weight book. I stuck to the plan pretty well, even over the holidays. I watched my weight and body fat drop, and more muscles started to show. The rest will be cleaned up during Ironman training. I'll leave you tonight with some before and after pictures:

This is from the Triangle Triathlon that I ran shirtless last July. My waist is wider than my chest and there was jiggly stuff everywhere. Check out the size of my neck and chin(s)!

Same race, check out the rolls of belly fat hanging over those tri shorts! UGH! This was around 205 lbs.

The after pic is me working in the garden with the kids a few weeks ago. You can see a difference in my waist size and neck, just the definition around my jawbone is very different. The sunlight kind of washed out some, but that's ok. It's still a great shot.