It’s two full months after Ironman Arizona 2011. My alarm is set for 4:45 am Monday morning. Starting tomorrow, training begins.
I’m starting this year over 200 lbs, a weight which I haven’t been in years. I felt really good going into the 2011 race at 185lbs and lost over ten pounds the day of the race. I felt as if I ran out of steam at the end. You can see a huge difference in the way I look from the beginning of the day to the end. My thought for this year, was to race at about 195 pounds to see if I could feel a difference in performance and if I did lose ten pounds again, I’d have a little left in storage for the end.
Here are my running totals from last year: I spent 311 hours training, doing 43,500 sit-ups, 5,000 push-ups, I swam for 68 hours, ran for 340 miles, biked 2,360 miles, and had an amazing time doing it. I’m zeroing them out and starting over for 2012, and shooting for doubling the 2011 totals.
Ironman Arizona 2012 will be my second time completing the Ironman. After going through last year, I (sort of) know what to expect. I have a plan on where I want to be in the water before the cannon shoots and how fast I want to swim. I know how much time I want to spend in transitions, and how fast I want to maintain on the bike. The last piece of the race is the marathon. My training this year will include a lot more miles running so I am prepared to finish strong.
Maybe I’m a little screwy, but I can’t wait until the alarm goes off at 4:45 am tomorrow morning because my training will begin!
