January

           After having completed a Half Ironman or what's now known as an Ironman 70.3 (1.2 mile swim / 56 mile bike / 13.1 mile run) last Sept. I've finally committed myself to attempt to pursue completing a full Ironman triathlon ( 2.4 mile swim / 112 mile bike / 26.2 mile run). So this blog will attempt to chronicle the road that leads me there.

         It really started the summer of 2008 when I watched my brother in-law and his family compete in the Pewaukee triathlon. The PewaukeeTri is a sprint distance tri in which one swims 1/4 mile, bikes 15 miles and then runs 3.1 miles. Watching it was fun but I thought "I could do this" and with a little coercion from my BIL Mike I signed on for the following year. My only real concern was the swim as I am definitely a poor swimmer but what the heck it is only a 1/4 mile I could probably make that doing the dog paddle.

2009

       Well July of 2009 came and I found myself standing on the beach of Pewaukee lake at 6:15 in the morning getting ready to run into the lake at the start and participate in my first triathlon. At the sound of the air horn my wave entered the water and 1:45:17 later I crossed the finish line completing the swim, bike and run.                                                                                                                                                                           The swim wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but the bike portion was disappointing mainly because I did it on a mountain bike                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           and the run was over before I knew it. After crossing the finish line my first thoughts were #1, that wasn't very hard and #2, I really need to get a road bike if I'm going to do this again.

      A month later I became the proud owner of a brand new Felt B-16 carbon fiber frame tri-bike and looking forward to 2010

2010
Spring of 2010 came and I started to ride my new bike a lot along with running in anticipation of Pewaukee 2010 in July. June came and I started to swim in Pewaukee lake at my BIL's house on the lake. Then came the Pewaikee Tri on July 11. I knocked 10 minutes off my time from 2009 and was ready to try a longer distance triathlon                                                                                                                                            I signed up for the Oshkosh Olympic distance triathlon on August 8th and had 4 weeks to prepare. An Olympic distance tri makes the jump from a 1/4 mi. swim to 3/4 mi., the bike portion jumps from 15mi. to 32 mi. and the run from 3.1 mi to 6.2mi.
The jump from 1/4 mi. to 3/4 mi. swim had me concerned but I worked at it and found it to be managable to swim though I had to rely on doing the breaststroke. Not a very efficient way to swim and not to mention a slow stroke. August 8th came and I completed my first Oly. distance tri in 3:02:26. I was most happy with the fact I finished the 32 miles on the bike in 1:35:53 or 20.3 MPH. and the 6.2 mi.run in 54:22 which put me under a 0:09:00 / mi pace at 0:08:46 / mi.

When I finish the Pewaukee tri earlier in the year, it was over way to quick and so I was looking to do the Olympic distance tri test my endurance ability. After finishing the Olympic tri I still felt I had what it takes to go further. Over the next week I talked myself into trying a half ironman distance tri. and signed up for the "Lake Geneva Half Ironman" on September 11th.  I really wasn't sure if I was getting in over my head or not. Sprint and olympic distance tri's really are not all that hard  if you are attempting them just to finish and test your self. A half ironman distance is a serious step up in commitment, training and nutrition if you expect to finish. I had already worked hard to train for the olympic but was another three weeks enough time to prepare for a half?

To be truthful here, I had it in my mind since January 2010 to attempt a half iron distance tri and was fully capable of biking 56 miles and of also doing a half marathon run (13.1 miles) in fact I already had two half marathons under my belt and was regularly riding over 70 miles at a time on my bike. Stretching the swim from 3/4 mi. to 1.2 mi. was one of the two questions in my mind, the other being can I string all three of these distances together in one continous effort that would take over 6 hours to complete?

There was only three weeks to find out. First thing was to see if I could swim 1.2 miles. I found I could, although not very fast. I started doing more "bricks" which are combining a bike ride and a run together immediatly one after the other just like in an event. So I found myself ramping up to D-day by doing bricks of 10/1 ratio ala 50 mi.bike / 5mi. run, 70/7 and so on. Nutrition was another thing I had to learn, the fact is your body can only store about 1800 calories in the form of carbohydrates and during hard exercise you will use those 1800 up in less than 1-1/2 hours. After that your body starts to burn fat which is very inefficient and your body cannot do it fast enough to keep your energy up and you hit the wall, that is you run out of energy. So to keep this from happening you must replenish those carbs you are burning which means you have to eat during hard exercise that last more than 1-1/2 hours. Eating while doing hard exercise can be very difficult and you must train yourself to do it. There are lots of products available for athletes to accomplish this and you need to find out what your body likes. Many people find that their bodies revolt in the form of nausea or stomach cramps, see each individual has to find what works best for them. By the end of the three weeks I was pretty sure I was ready.