Training For Ironman St George (Part I)

I am three weeks into training and everything is going great. I have been following a 20 week training plan I found posted on BeginnerTriathlete.com and it is really nice to have someone/something else to tell me what to do. Because of my work schedule and need to have somewhat of a social life, I have not been following the training plan to the 'T', but I have been pretty close. I also have closer to 29 weeks until Ironman St George (IMSG), so I figure I can go a little easier in the beginning and add a couple weeks to my build training. So far, my biggest week has been 8:45 of training where 1:15 was swimming, 4:45 was biking and 2:45 was running. I plan on bringing this number up quite a bit, but I need to build up to it. I am trying to focus each week on a different leg of the race so I can get some longer sessions in. At first I wasn't taking any rest days, but this last week I finally took a rest day and it felt great! The next day, I felt supercharged to get after my workout. This weekend I am heading to North Carolina to climb so I will have a pretty long rest weekend. Once I get back I will be ready for a week of hardcore training. At the peak of my workout schedule I plan on training about 20 hours a week. This is going to take a very strict, serious schedule. I will definitely have to work up to this. One thing I have learned even with my easy schedule is that organization is key. I have started making myself a schedule every day and doing my best to stick to it. This forces me to think ahead and make sure I have the right clothes at the right time to do my workouts.

All my swim workouts will probably be in the pool at the gym, but I hope to do at least one open water swim before the race comes. I do three different kinds of running: speed running on the track, regular running on the road and trail running. I try to do at least one of each of these throughout a week to mix everything up. As the snow starts to fall more, I will probably just be running on the track and the street though. So far, all of my biking has been on the street or local trails, but I will probably switch a lot of this to a trainer when the snow is here. I have not had a chance to ride my new TT bike yet, so I have only been using my mountain bikes to train.

My next goal is to start working on my nutrition. Every pound I lose, is a pound less I have to carry around.