The harder you work, the harder it becomes to surrender.
2 weeks until IronMan Santa Rosa! It’s been a great journey prepping for my first IronMan. I have learned and gained more from this experience than I have from anything I have ever done previously. This in my opinion is the biggest part of growing as a person. Your biggest accomplishment should NEVER lie in the past. You build on previous experiences and always look to do something harder next, whether that is physically or mentally, preferably both! This IronMan is not the finish line, I already have plenty of other ideas of how to push myself further and continue the growth process after this race… but more on that later.
One big question I get asked is how do you find the time or energy to put in this amount of work? The biggest part of that answer is motivation, and you can check out last week’s post on my go-to 3 ways to get motivated. Motivation alone is not enough though, you must prioritize and execute. If you want to adequately prep, you need to minimize the drag in your day and try not to waste precious time on activities that will not get you to where you need to get. Find those things that will contribute to the grand goal and execute them first.
Simple things like food prep will save you time (and money) by not having to drive somewhere and wait on food. You can still watch your favorite show while doing a deep stretch/roll session as part of your recovery, but you’ll have to limit yourself to just keeping up on one show. You will miss out on some social events and give up alcohol, because that is just not in your priority at the moment. Waking up early and getting after it allows you to put your training first so that the rest of the work day can not interfere. I finish the majority of my long workouts during the week before my 0700 start of the workday even rolls around. Not just because I like waking up early, but because that ensures nothing gets in the way of the grind. Finally, just getting started is the key. When you don’t feel like going for that run, or jumping in the cold pool at 0500, just taking that first step is the key to success. As I talked about last week, that first step of motion creates emotion, and you will be surprised at how quick you start enjoying the process even if you didn’t want to start in the beginning.
April was a big month, and even though I’ve put more miles behind me than any other month, I have not felt better and fresher during training camp than I do today. Good sign! Numbers for month (and week) are below. One more taper week next week (about 65% output from my highest volume week last week) and i will be ready.
