I am now entering week nine of my Ironman distance training, and this is the week that I’ve been worrying about. Some six weeks ago I started looking into my future plans and one thing about this week concerned me. I knew I would be training into winter, I knew I would be doing a lot of runs in the dark, rainy mornings. I planned to do most of my swims during Quinlan’s (nine year old daughter) swim practices. However, I was not prepared for the length of bike riding I am required to do this week. Here in Oregon, it’s wet and dark much of the winter. This week sunrise is at about 7:30 am and sunset is at about 4:30 pm. This makes it difficult to do actual road rides on the bike. So, last year I got a Cycleops bike trainer. This allows me to clip my road bike into the trainer. The trainer has a resistance wheel that allows me to ride stationary and use the gears to allow even more or less resistance. …back to my worries. This week I am supposed to do a training ride of 3 hours and 15 minutes!!! …on a stationary bike!!! On the road, at least there are times when you can coast, stretch the legs a little bit, stand up and get out of the saddle. The views are ever changing. The wind cools you off. Not so on a stationary bike. I’ve been working my way up to two hours, and I seem to be getting better at handling the saddle soreness and boredom. I look foreword to see if I can accomplish this new milestone in training.
Also this week, I am supposed to do a 2,600 yard swim. This includes a 300 yard warm up, 2000 yard foundation swim and a 300 yard cool down. While I received a huge confidence boost this last week by swimming my first 1500 swim (non-stop, no fins) in a very long time, I am extremely nervous about accomplishing this goal too.
All these goals seem large and insurmountable. However, I have faith that they will strengthen me and prepare me to become a Vineman next year.
