This is one of 14 updates about my 2014 challenge to complete an Ironman – you can see a list of the others here. I am now six months out from my race. I would love to say that things have gone swimmingly, but I feel like I need to be honest in this blog. The last month has been a rough one for training as I hit physical and mental blocks. The good news is that I, have found a path around them and feeling back on track – I’ll discuss this more later in this post. Training Data The chart below is my training which I am now grouping by week since the daily level is too small to be legible. There isn’t a key but blue is biking, yellow is swimming & green is running. You’ll also notice some red (surfing) and dark green (stationary bike trainer)
I am ahead of schedule… sort of. To date this year I’ve read: The Millionaire Next Door* David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants* The Joy of Less The 4-Hour Workweek* The Art of War* Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People* Warren Buffett’s Management Secrets* I am currently Reading: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Shepherding a Child’s Heart Le Miserables* *Denotes audiobook That is why I feel I am only ‘sort of’ ahead of schedule. Six of my eight completed books were audio books. I haven’t been reading as much as I’d intended, but I have really been enjoying my waterproof iPod during my training bikes, swims & run (plus the occasional car trip). I had intended to stick to non-fiction for audiobooks, but I was cruising through them. Some are only 3-4 hours long
“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.” -Maimonides Data Driven Decisions I am a believer that one of the worst things you can do when making decisions is to do so without data. Worse than making a decision without data though is making a slow decision without data. Worst of all is indecision without data. In an effort to push my reliance on data even further, I am undertaking an experiment to make no decisions without data. I will instead defer those decisions to my Dataless Decision Coin. My Dataless Decision Coin This coin is not particularly special. It is a 1971 US $1 coin, commonly called a ‘Silver Dollar’. I’ve had this one for a long time. It was likely given to me by the Tooth Fairy in exchange for a small molar. You can however find a similar coin on ebay for