Well, I’m now “officially” entering into my third season of full-on Ironman training.
Sure, there have been some obvious obstacles along the way that have prevented me from, well, racing…but I am confident that I have much of this training thing down pat by now.
How do I know?
Well, I guess I don’t seeing as how I’ve never really tested it in battle, per se, but, regardless, if my overall fitness one week out from last years’ event was anything to go by I was absolutely 100% ready… you know, before all this bullshit happened (click HERE). I was strong, I was confident and I was raring to go. I was swimming, cycling and running at a level I hadn’t managed since Ironman Wales and, in many ways – better. I perfected my nutrition strategy (click HERE) and even had a few amazing local sponsors (click HERE) to help and encourage me along the way. And most importantly, I had the best support system possible (click HERE).
All my ducks were in a perfect row so to speak.
Now, that’s not say that there weren’t some bumps along the way – in fact, there were many – but that’s just part of the process. Sometimes you have to fall flat on your face (quite literally I’m afraid) in order to learn those oh, so valuable lessons.
And believe me; I learned a lot of lessons over the past two years.
They say everything happens for a reason (or so I keep telling myself) so maybe these past two years were just to be my overall “Iron-schooling” if you will, so that when I actually do – *knock on wood* – get to pull the trigger, it will be exactly the experience I am looking forward to and expect from myself because I will have done all the right hard work that I’ve learned as a result from all those mistakes, and I will perfected a successful training plan that works for ME.
Of course, as you might expect, this year has already presented me with another major obstacle to factor in – new employment.
For the past six years I have been fortunate enough to work in my jammies from my basement office, affording me the opportunity to train more or less at my own convenience. I swam or cycled in the late morning or evening, ran in the afternoons between conference calls and kept up a dedicated strength conditioning program throughout.
Essentially, I could work my job around my training and everyone was happy.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the same case this year.
Now I have a regular eight hour work day, Monday through Friday, which requires me to be gone from home. Also, it’s a physical job…very physical. Especially considering that the most physical thing I did before was dial the phone, or get up and walk over to the printer across the room to pick up my daily report.
No, now I actually have to work and train.
This has now forced me to once again re-evaluate my training program in order to successfully accomplish both without over doing it and thereby putting too much stress on my mind and body because, let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger.
Just another problem to be tackled and lesson to be learned I suppose.
Anyway, instead of spending my days conducting virtual classrooms and pumping out those stupid endless (not to mention meaningless) reports in my pajama pants, I am now officially working in the Pest Control business.
I know, talk about your 180° turn right?
After all, who thinks of bugs and rats and goes, “OH BOY!”
No one!
That’s who.
Then again, the same thing could be said about the environment I was working in before so, yeah, I figured “why the fuck not?” when this opportunity produced itself and the truth of the matter is – I love it.
As it turns out, I really enjoy the “unknown factor” in my day each and every time I turn up at a new location/job and that excites me. There is nothing “routine” about Pest Management. Behind every door is the unknown; be it the issue, the environment, or the people and this genuinely appeals to my overall sense of curiosity and adventure (click HERE for a small taste of what I’m talking about).
The challenge now that I’ve been tasked with figuring out these past three months is how to turn this new situation to my advantage. You see, the downside now is that I’m not able to go for my mid-dayn runs anymore on my lunchtime, nor can I structure morning conference call a bit late so I can hit up the pool.
In other words, “time management” has become my #1 priority; particularly if I ever want to see my family again.
So here is what I’ve learned while being (and training) on the job for the past few months.
1. Early mornings are a definite. Get used to it.
Yup, there’s just no getting around it. Monday through Friday means a ridiculously early wake-up. My alarm will typically go off anytime between 4:15 and 5:00am on a normal work day. Afterwards, I will either a) go for swim before starting work, or b) complete a 20-25 minute core/yoga routine with Toby the Cat (affectionately called my “Core Project“).
Shit, sometimes I even attend a ladies “Booty Camp” on Friday’s.
Either way, I’m up and at ‘em.
The benefit to this (besides the obvious) is that once I’m up, I will have completed something that day and even if everything else that day gets totally FUBAR-ed, I still will have managed to complete at least one thing constructive and aimed at my overall goal of rebuilding my Iron-fitness.
On the weekends, however, I sleep in to 8:00am…and it’s glorious.
2. My work day IS a strength workout.
Between October and November while I was unemployed, I was completing at least 2-3 weights specific strength building workouts at the gym and these have definitely served me well. However, now there’s just not enough time in the day to complete these on top of the necessary swim, bike and run workouts; something had to give.
Fortunately, my day is one long strength-building workout (double if you factor in my morning core workouts) in that I’m flipping mattresses and box springs, pulling out stoves and fridges and otherwise moving heavy obstacles and furniture out of the way in order to get at my enemy. While doing this, I am conscientious to maintain the same good form and engage the right muscle groups that I would have had I been working with the free weights at the gym.
Also, I have to be able to get down and under things regularly. In fact, on one particular work day I successfully accomplished exactly 367 lunges (yes, I counted) – that’s getting down on one knee (or squatting) and then getting back up again.
Umm, hello?
When was the last time you managed 367 lunges/squats in a single day?
I do this almost daily, and already I am noticing some significantly improved bike/run strength in these first early weeks of dedicated Ironman training; bearing in mind that I ceased with the free weights three months ago.
Winning!
3. No fast food. Ever.
I am noticing that a lot of my peers in the industry eat complete shit throughout the day, or just not at all. Myself? The last thing I do before I go to bed at the ripe hour of 8:00-8:30pm each night is make up a healthy lunch and a bunch of small containers of healthy snacks that I can graze on in the truck throughout the day. This is particularly important seeing as how the chances are high that I will have another challenging workout to complete after work once I get home.
As I figure it, this is also helping to determine proper fueling strategies that I can then utilize in the days leading up to all my events, and even during.
In the past three months, I have managed to get away with buying a medium coffee in the mornings after a swim, and one single breakfast sandwich (which I instantly regretted) only because I forgot my post-workout snack at home.
4. Afternoon/evening workouts are actually better!
Well, better in the sense that I don’t necessarily have to warm up a lot before I begin my main sets. When I was running/cycling in the afternoons while working from home, because I was more or less 100% sedentary throughout the working hours, my body needed at least 15-20 minutes of steady warming up before I felt like I could tackle any difficult intervals and the like.
Now, essentially, my entire day is one big warm up so that when I head back out the door when I get home, I’m more or less ready to go – instantly.
The other immediate benefit is that I can also cut down on the overall length of the workout itself seeing as how I don’t have to spend that initial time warming up. I can just get straight to the main core of the workout fairly quickly (which, really, is the important part), get ‘er done and then get home again. And that also means less overall wear and tear and stress being placed on the body.
Sure my weekly mileage may be a bit short compared to where I was at this time in previous years, but I’m not performing any worse either; the quality is still all there.
5. Additional mental toughness conditioning.
I’ve already mentioned numerous times how important I think developing “mental toughness” is in triathlon, especially at the Ironman level. Well, try working a very physical eight hour work day and then going out for a run or bike. Sure I just mentioned that those post-work day workouts have been trending well recently, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I was looking forward to them.
No, that takes a bit of added discipline.
More so if the weather is shitty.
When I worked from home, I literally couldn’t wait to get outside and counted down the hours and minutes before I could. Now, depending on how hard I’ve worked that day I will have to mentally prepare myself and sometimes practically force myself out.
And when I do, I feel almost invincible.
So, yeah, so far so good on both the work and training fronts!
And while these lessons are valuable and I feel like I’m getting a handle on this Ironman training business once again, I know that in two weeks when things take another turn towards the LONG, there will inevitably be more things to figure out and strategize around.
Thing is, where I didn’t exactly know how this whole new direction was going to play out when I first accepted this job, so far, it’s been manageable and I’m once again beginning to believe that this whole Ironman madness is once again possible…
Providing I can actually stay on my bike that is.