Looking Back...

I thought it might be fun to look back over some of the stats of the past year. Although many of the benefits, trials, emotions, etc. of training for an Ironman are intangible and not objective, the ones that are quantifiable are kinda interesting:

Following are the mileages that I covered during the 30-week training program leading up to (and including) the event:

SWIM: 90.6 total miles of swimming with about 80 of those being in a swimming pool. That means that I did about 2560 laps (down and back equals one lap) in a 25 meter pool. That's a lot of time staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool. The other 10-ish miles were done in open water, including races in Lake Michigan, Gray's Lake, Big Creek, Lake Red Rock, and, of course, Lake Monona. I also did quite a bit of open water swim training in Peterson Pits. I took about 60 trips to the pool with some at 5:30 in the morning, some over the noon hour, and some after work. I think the only thing that kept me sane during all the swimming was being able to go to Carr Pool outside during the summer. Somehow the sunshine made it more doable. Basically, I can say I swam from Florida to Cuba!

BIKE: I rode about 2400 miles between the open road and some cold or rainy weather riding on the trainer. And I estimate about 150 hours in the saddle! In hind sight, this is the one area I wish I'd have spent more time. I did a pretty good job of getting longer rides in on the weekend, but the first workouts to go were the mid-week shorter rides. 2400 miles is equivalent to riding from Ames to Vail, CO, then back to Ames, then back to Vail!!

RUN: I ran about 625 miles over 30 weeks. Most weeks involved about 20-30 miles per week, with 3-4 weeks in the 30+ range. Running really is still my favorite thing to do, so I probably would have run more if all that swimming and cycling hadn't gotten in the way! 625 miles is a little more than 3 trips from Ames to Bettendorf!

CALORIES: I wore a heart rate monitor for most of my running, about 80% of my cycling, and none of my swimming. The HRM estimates caloric expenditure based on heart rate and duration. So, although I only wore the HRM for less than 2/3 of my workouts, it still estimates about 135,000 kcals!! That's about 38.5 pounds of kcals! You can only imagine how much food I got to eat during all this training!!

MONEY: I can only just begin to estimate how much this little endeavor cost me over the past year! Just a few of the things I purchased for this year:

• new bike (including new helmet, shoes, pedals, hydration system, etc.)
• weekly chiropractic appointments
• monthly massages
• 2 new pair of running shoes
• winter running clothes
• new tri shorts
• new tri tops
• new bike shorts
• tons of laundry deteregent to keep the washer going constantly
• 5 race entries (the IM was about $450 itself!!)
• new swim goggles and swimsuits
• nutrition for training and racing (gels, Perpetuem, recovery drink, etc.)
• food to eat during the day at work (I was eating constantly throughout my day)
• lodging for out of town triathlons
• gas for out of town tris and training (including numerous trips to DM for bike rides)

INJURIES: I started all this training with a nagging hamstring injury that I'd been fighting for about a year. I guess it just healed itself through training and stretching and a lot of ice. Other than that, I was very fortunate not to have any other injuries the whole year!

SICKNESS: I attribute all the sleep, the good nutrition, and all the activity to the fact that I never got sick for the entire year. I did get sick about 2 weeks after the race, but I think my body was just done fighting by that time!