This is one of 14 updates about my 2014 challenge to complete an Ironman – you can see a list of the others here. I did it. I can now call myself an Ironman. What did the right to that title cost me? $6,000, 4,000 miles over 450 hours of training, 25 lbs, one toenail & 100+ hours of research. All of that and a grueling day that tested every fiber of my body & mind. My finish time of 11:01:10 put me in 277th out of 2,390 total finishers (not counting 248 DNFs). I was also 15th out of 112 in my division (excluding 5 DNFs). All & all I was faster than about 90% of people out there on race day. My goal was to win my age group and I missed that by a significant margin. To be honest though, I set that as a goal knowing it
This is one of 14 updates about my 2014 challenge to complete an Ironman – you can see a list of the others here. Here I am again. Race week. I was gifted an extra two months to train when Ironman Lake Tahoe was cancelled in September. Once I found out I was going to race Ironman Arizona in November, I decided to extend my training by adding another build phase followed by a taper. Here is how that went. Training Data Instead of just trying to extend my peak, my plan would ideally allow me to push myself even further before getting race ready again. Those extra miles pushed me over the 4K mark. You can see the really low week in September – that was when the last race was supposed to happen. After that I built back to my max milage over the next two weeks. I planned