Everyone has a list of things that they want to accomplish. For some reason this race is on mine. If you’re not familiar with what an Ironman triathlon is, you start with a 2.4 mile swim, continue with a 112 mile bike ride and finish with a full marathon run of 26.2 miles. Pros complete this race in a little less than 9 hours. The cut off for everyone else to finish is 17 hours. 17 hours. This is the race where you’ve seen youtube videos of people barely crawling across the finish line. To describe it as extreme is a huge understatement.

Over the last few years as I’ve gotten back into endurance athletics I’ve had my eye on this race and finally decided that I would do it. Just a few weeks ago Ironman announced the addition of a new race in their schedule to be held in The Woodlands, TX (just outside Houston). The race is close to home, so travel is easy, and it’s in a perfect part of the year. -I can finish the training I’ve already started for the Xterra triathlon in Austin in August and then the marathon in Long Beach in October, take a few weeks off to recover and then have plenty of time to ease into the Ironman training schedule. The idea is to slowly ramp up the training so I don’t get injured or burned out.

Burn out is what worries me the most. I’m reviewing training schedules now online with an eye towards the schedules that don’t start too early, but are long enough that I’m not putting myself at risk of injury. They range from around 16 to about 30 weeks long. Most of those workout days contain at least 2 workouts each day – a swim and bike or swim and run or bike and run, etc. I know in order to get all the training in I’ll have to get used to waking up around 5 am every day because I don’t want the training to interfere with my wife or our baby. As I re-read this last paragraph I ask myself, “Why do I want to do this?”

I want to do it so that I can point back to it and say, “I did that.” I’m going to log hundreds of miles in training between the pool, bike and running. I’m going to have to figure out a way to try and enjoy getting up crazy early every day. I’m not going to win any awards. I’m not in good enough shape to even think about really competing in my age group. I just want to earn the mental check-mark next to this event and be able to say, “I did it.”