Monday, November 24, 2008

Mission: IM AZ 2009

Registration opened up today for Ford Ironman Arizona (race date 11/22/2009). The race has been held typically in April, but this year it took place in both April and then again yesterday. The race will permanently be held in November to avoid the spring wind and potentially hotter temperatures.

At 2pm it was supposed to open up, and the ensuing rush of Interweb traffic crashed Active.com out. After 40 minutes, Zero was finally able to get through. I was still getting shafted. He then calls me up at 2:45 and says he was able to get in (again) and was going to go through guest access to get me in. So a few minutes, and $551 later, I am registered for an Ironman.

Shoot. I'm registered for an Ironman.

My knowledge of triathlon is based on this event; I heard about it in 8th grade and thought "geez that's a piece of cake, I can do that" - nevermind the fact I didn't race anything over 200m on the track, didn't own a bike and couldn't swim. Now to finally be registered for one is pretty cool.

Although, in the back of my head I can't help but think that if I hadn't gotten in, IM Western Australia would have been really cool to do. Drawbacks are the late date (12/8) and the fact it's on the other side of the world and would be really expensive. But it would have been really cool. One year...

So now I have 52 weeks to get ready for this race, which sounds like a lot but there will probably be 15 100+ mile rides, 15 20+ runs and yikes, I'll have to do more than a few swim workouts of 6000+ meters. I'm not real psyched on the late date of this race either, as I was totally burned out before November this year (and just about every year). It'll require a bit more focus and a lot less racing. Forced two weeks off after Eagleman, easy/long training through the summer and intense training during the fall.

The cool part of the experience will be getting to go through the process with Zero, and my old friend Larry, who at age 60something will be doing his first Ironman.

6 comments:

THE KRIS said...

let me see if i've got this. if i save $10 every week for the next year, i afford to run this thing in '10?

Matias said...

U R NUTZ

RM said...

Oh Matias, it pales in comparison to the sickest double I've ever seen: Louisville followed by Hawaii 6 weeks later, and going faster at Hawaii! Solidifying your status as a p-i-m-p

Matias said...

If you're up for some trainer parties, let me know - we have the XM blasting, disco ball, the works in our basement. Here's the two month cycling plan, it will make you a BEAST on the bike. Its a two month cycle:

Weeks 1-4:
Tempo work, lots of 30-60 minute workouts 5-6 times a week. Tempo is a very high ratio of work to rest. Something like 10:1. The breaks are more mental breaks--since you are indoors--than physical breaks

Weeks 5-6:
Threshold work, going to have a work to rest ratio between 2:1 and 5:1. You want to have around 25-40 minutes of WORK in the workout.

Weeks 7-8:
VO2 max stuff. I would basically recommend basically doing the threshold stuff mentioned above, THEN doing something like this:

10 Minutes of 30 Seconds ON...HARD... KILL IT followed by 10 Minutes Easy. This is really hard after doing some threshold stuff. You pretty much want to shoot yourself. You can't do this too many weeks in a row. Two weeks of 3 sessions per week (6 total) will give you a significant boost in performance

After week 8, go back to the beginning, but now you should be able to do more work at the same effort.

CRUSH IT

///MM said...

Dude. What did we just do.

RM said...

Thanks for the workouts, Matias. The good news is that since the race isn't until November of next year, I'll be able to do my stuff in the warmer months and shouldn't have to do too many real hard efforts on the trainer.

However, I will have to do some stuff on the trainer to get ready for an assault on the 1:01:xx Columbia bike split that I want to put down. Tom Stott and I will also start heading out to Frederick soon at least once a month for some nasty hills - that got me in pretty good shape last year and I was riding pretty well.

Combine that with some 100-130 mile rides every couple weekends and it should be manageable. I'm actually more concerned about running 26 miles off the bike than anything, so tips for that are appreciated/suggested!