And so it begins (again)

I firmly believe my blog served a good purpose at one point for me and I want to get that part of my life back again so I decided to resurrect it and pass along how things are going and where I am at in my life right now. I appreciate everyone that has followed it and I'm sorry I got away from it now.

Let's go back to 2009. I think back to last summer and the training I did and my journey to Ironman Wisconsin. The 17 hour goal that was not reached. But did I fail? I did for a while feel like I failed. I wanted it and it was in my grasp and I couldn't do it. Now that 6 months have gone by? Well actually I feel pretty proud of what I did and I learned a lot. I swam 2.4 miles. I biked 112 miles. I staggered 26.2 miles. In 17 hours and 16 minutes. I wanted to quit. My quads cramped up so bad on the bike and my feet blistered so bad on the run. What that taught me is that mentally I'm tough enough. The pain I felt was real and my will to overcome it was stronger. It was a great learning experience. But what did I learn? Let's break it down into what I feel are the 5 things I learned the most.

Training up to Ironman. I put in plenty of miles. But I didn't get enough quality miles. Not enough miles where I was outside the comfort zone. Not enough miles where I hurt. I also didn't ride the IM bike course enough. Living 40 minutes away there is no excuse for me not to know every inch of that course and how hard I can ride it. Too many run miles at an easy pace. Not enough miles where I feel like puking. Well hopefully I can remedy that in the next 6 months.

Swim: I actually won't put as much focus on my swim. It is what it is. I won't waste my time trying to make up 15 or 20 minutes on the swim by putting hours and hours in the pool. Swim will take me about an hour and 40 minutes. I will get some good swims in this year. A lot of open water and Devils Lake swims to make myself more comfortable. I feel good about the swim and how I did.

Bike: Too many easy bike miles last year. Won't be the case this year. This is where I think I can make up a lot of time compared to last year. I know I didn't go hard enough. I was too scared to fail or burn out. Well I did that anyway. I don't remember feeling worked on the bike. I will be in better bike shape this year. I didn't ride enough hills last summer. I will ride the hills this year. I will ride the Ironman course as much as I can. I want to know what I can do. I have changed over to speedplay pedals in hopes that fixes the feet blisters.

Run: Not enough long runs last year and not enough tough runs. I had such bad blisters last year I couldn't hardly run at all. I'm not sure I ran more than a mile or two. Provided my feet are not blistered, I'm running. If I get off the bike, I'll make it. I will run until I make it or they take me out on a stretcher. I have a pretty good running plan this year.

Nutrition: FAILED...BAD. No where near enough calories, no where near enough fluid. I just lost the desire to eat on the bike and even though I thought I was drinking enough, I wasn't. I never peed on the bike and afterwards it was just blood. I know now that came from the bladder being empty. Totally new strategy this year complete with a timer, plenty of water and nuun and less gatorade. I plan to eat calories too. I think that will help. Especially with the leg cramps on the bike.

Friends: I couldn't have done it without them. With facebook now, I feel like there are so many more people excited and I have heard several people telling me they will be there cheering us on. It really helped me. I saw people yelling my name and people telling me they followed my blog. I will never underestimate the power of friends. Everything helped me to keep going. I hope the same thing occurs this year.

Bottom line is I just didn't work HARD enough. I put in the miles but I just didn't go hard enough. I know I can get in better shape. I know I can.

Well let's move ahead to now. What have I done to help my situation.

I started early. I have been indoor biking for 2 months and have done 50-100 miles a week. I have been utilizing Spinervals at times to force myself to work hard. I have only taken a couple outside rides and they were both just miles. I'm hoping to get outside when it's warm and ride hard. I have a couple routes leaving from my house that I can do once a week. Hard routes. Plus doing single loops on the IM course at all out.
I have been running more than last year already. 20+ miles a week. I have already done several runs over 10 miles. Within the next couple weeks I will hit 15 miles. I plan to maintain high run miles by doing longer runs. Last year I did a lot of 5-8 mile runs. This year more 15+ mile runs. I haven't swam much and really that doesn't bother me. I have swam a mile in the pool once already and it wasn't too bad. I'm looking forward to swimming outside in open water in my wetsuit.

The bad (because there is always bad). I'm still about 6 pounds above where I did Ironman last year. I want to be about 30 pounds less that when I did Ironman last year so I need to lose about 6 pounds a month. I can't seem to stop shoveling crap food into my face. It's frustrating and I really need to get that part under control. It is something I can control but right now I am not. I have a couple nagging pains that I have never had before. My left heel is sore every morning. Today it was so bad I couldn't hardly stand up. It gets better during the day and I can run/bike on it. It just hurts the next day. So I guess just another mental hurdle. Also my surgically repaired knee that I have always known will someday hurt, has begun. Nothing terrible, but noticeable. My awesome wife has some tools to help me and has given me some advice.

My sons are now self sufficient. There is no reason to have to take care of them. I get home and it's my time. Once the sun starts to stay up and the temps are warm (in the next few weeks for sure), I should be able to get a few hours every night outside. Until then I'll use the trainer and the treadmill if I need to.

So here I am. A year older, and a year wiser. I am hoping to do things to inspire myself, my family and all of you that have followed me and cheered me on. Facebook has allowed me to connect with so many cool people that have inspired me. I want to pay it forward. Here we go people. I'm ready..

Now if I can just get the scale to stop lying to me.