Tuesday, June 26, 2007

What Would An Ironman Do?

291 Days until Ironman


Training:
Rest Day


Thoughts:
Two days ago I participated in what our Tri Club calls an "Underground Triathlon." This is a laid back fun event with no pressure or rules. I arrived just in time for the start. I decided swim just the first of the two 600 meter loops. I figured this would give me a little head start up the huge steep, sheer, vertical, unreasonable, abrupt, precipitous, enormous, gigantic, massive, giant, mammoth, colossal, titanic mountain we had to climb. I made it 1.7 miles up the beast from hell and decided it was time to turn around. The guys who I wanted to get a head start on were already easily passing me as I was struggling to make forward progress up this hill. It was made very clear that at this point in time I do not have the leg strength and confidence to conquer the hills. I turned around and thought I would get in a quality run since I cut both the swim and the bike short. The run was ok, I was able to keep my slow jogging pace.
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The question here is what would an Ironman do? Would an Ironman:
---opt for one loop instead of two on the swim?
---turn around because a hill is giving him a serious beating?
---be content with a slow jog after a poor short swim and bike?
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I did have a great time hanging out with the crew at the lake. There are worse things then being with your buddies, drinking a few beers and telling some good jokes.
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Have you seen the shows where there is an Angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other, talking in the ear of the host trying to convince them to do something either right or wrong? Sometimes I have two figures on my shoulders but instead of an Angel and Devil, they are a fatass and a badass. I need to learn to stop listening to the fatass and start listening to the badass. The problem is the badass has not been saying much lately.

4 comments:

Brent Buckner said...

During his early base training, sometimes MARK Freakin' ALLEN would walk hills: article

Most important: build a happy and healthy lifestyle.

JC Hyte said...

I thought you did good out there. you had a descent swim, yes you turned back early on the bike but you made it to the top of the biggest hill, there's got to be some bad ass points for that.
You even ran twice.

I noticed on you blog that your doing a race this week. good luck Bad Ass

Joy | Love | Chaos said...

I'm no Ironman, but...

...I think you're being too hard on yourself.

Learn from the experience -- next time go a little bit farther outside of your comfort zone and maybe you'll surprise yourself.

Make the most of the experience -- hills take a shite load of time to get better at (I feel like I'm constantly doing them and I *still* got my seat handed to me last weekend!). Look at your plans for the coming months and see how you can fold in a little more hill work.

Use the experience in a positive way -- focusing on what you didn't do is only informative to a point and it tends to distract us from focusing on what you *could* do. Keep your eye on the prize and chin up.

Tri-Angle said...

You are a BAD ASS Tony. That hill SUCKED. If I hadn't been doing Usery, I would've doen the same. No worries 290 to go. I'm with ya man.
Andy
PS:I'm on your BAD ASS for the weight loss.