So how's Ironman training going around 9 months out?

Before we dive into the beginnings of Ironman Lake Tahoe Training, lets not forget...
Sign up for the Garmin 910XT contest!  We are up to about 25 individual entries, and we need 75 for the drawing to actually happen by December 24th at 11:59pm.

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On to the training thoughts...
I've been working with coach Bob and we had a good rhythm going until I hit the achilles issues.  I was able to make a comeback to run the Kansas City Marathon and the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k.  But, they were missions just to finish, and not exactly kill the course.

I'm hoping to keep injuries at bay and train to race hard in 2013.  Some more thoughts on achilles and back pain later.

But, here's some thoughts about training with an online coach so far.

1. As a busy husband, father of two young kids, son, employee and many other hats to wear, it's been hard finding time to dedicate catching up.  I'm lucky enough to get the planned workouts in.  I've worked more with Coach Bob on email that phone.  It works, but it's hard to relay what's going on in Kansas City to effective get a game plan going at 100%.
2. The workouts have been more focused on heart rate and time.  Before going on this adventure, I was more in line with effort and distance.  I wanted to get a 20 mile ride in at medium effort in the past, now it's a hour at zone 2 effort.
3. I've crammed more in a day than I thought I could in the past.  Coach Bob has been sensitive to the fact that I can get maybe a 30 minute lunch workout in and a 45 minute to an hour after work.  The kids and housework last until 10 to 11pm, so getting up at 4 or 5am to get a workout in 5 days a week just won't work.  It's ineffective to deprive yourself of sleep to get the workouts in.  You cannot recover properly and you will burn out.  Trust me.
4. It's prompted me to get the CycleOps PowerCal for power metering on the bike rides.  It's not the top of the line, but it gives me a good idea of what I'm putting out instead of being totally clueless.  It's also a good option for a triathlete on a budget.
5. It's introduced me to TrainingPeaks.  It's been good and bad.  I use a Garmin for the most part, so a nice feature is that you can export from Garmin and import to TP.  One glitch is that if you hook up to a spin bike with ANT features, that file will not export correctly.  Odd.  The flip side is that I have been reviewing some Timex gear and they export directly to TP, no conversions required.  It's been a learning curve to figure out how to read TP graphs and charts.  The jury is still out.
6. When I was injured, Coach Bob gave me good ideas to try and maintain my endurance base with non-impact exercises.  Although pool running is not ideal, it was better than nothing.  He's been there and done that, and it's nice to get that input.

Here's a sample of last week's numbers.  I found some time to get a mountain bike ride and trail run in.  It's been too long as I could make a loop without having to unclip from the bike pedals, but I was getting out more than I remembered ever having to.  I was getting better towards the end, but it had been too long.

Cycling - 51.74 miles - 2:45:29
Swimming - 2.13 miles - 1:03:36
Mountain Biking - 7.48 miles - 1:04:24
Trail Running - 4.40 miles - 42:58
Running - 13.05 - 1:10:09
Total Miles - 80 miles
Total Time - 7:59:44

So, good luck to all of you starting your programs for 2013.  I know I'm already gearing up and still have 9 months to go!


As a final note...
It was the most wretched thing I had ever seen.  Who can go and shoot 20 children, let alone teachers and staff...  As a parent to two young children, I'm at a loss.  I don't even want to think about what would happen if it was their school.  Hopefully reports keep focus on the victims and families, and keep the shooter out of it.  He does not deserve the air time.