What Happens Next?

Well, it’s been an outstanding post-IM vacation and I can definitely say I’ve let my muscles relax as well as the rules regarding nutrition. In the last two weeks, I’ve allowed myself hot dogs, pizza, beer, ice cream, hamburgers, and fried chicken. For the record, I dove back into the wine – both the crap in glass bottles and the very fancy kind that comes in cardboard – and it didn’t work for me. I believe I’m done with that old habit. I haven’t stepped on a scale since pre-IM and I’m expecting devastating results when I mount that thing again after I get home. My plan is to hit the training hard – perhaps with a little less volume – and get myself in some sort of shape for the late summer races around my home in NC: Washington Oly, Goldsboro Sprint, Lake Kristi, and either the Washington Half Iron or maybe the Outer Banks Marathon in November.

All this down time has given me some wonderful opportunities to gaze at the beautiful mountains and reflect on a great Ironman and ponder when another attempt will be and what else I can do to top this one. As for the first issue, I’ve hardly locked my radar on the next IM but Wales and Brazil are both on my radar at the moment. It would be fun to take this project overseas! And as for take-home improvement ideas, here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Don’t need the EFS Liquid Shot on the marathon. I flung that at the first aid station. A couple Gu Roctanes are sufficient.

2. I’m gonna pick a few brains a bit more and try to learn from others. I’m currently discussing the affects of First Endurance Ultragen as a pre-training fuel with a guy I met in CDA. I’m interested to see what tidbits I can pick up from fellow athletes.

3. I made a big mistake not attacking that bike leg of the IM. I was too focused on the marathon. I’ll need to put a plan together to change my approach to IM.

4. This may be crazy, but I want to give it some thought……would it be beneficial to reduce upper body muscle? Is that even possible? I’m not so sure the meat on the arms is helping me much here.

5. That lack of bike focus wasn’t just during the race. Some of those long Saturday rides really took an awful lot of gumption to get myself going. I’m thinking I’m gonna have to throw a lot more creativity at long IM-training rides. Perhaps, long one-way excursions, a day in the mountains, variable courses, personal primes to shoot for…..anything to spice those workouts up.
6. I liked that I added the Sunday evening recovery ride to my repertoire but I think that workout needs more structure to it. A one hour lollygag may not be all that beneficial.

7. Some of my metabolic affect workouts lacked intensity. I’ll try and beef those up.

8. I learned a lot and really enjoyed my marathon training plan, but the bulk of the mileage was at marathon pace or slightly below. A little more specificity might yield improvements.

9. Most of those training sessions this season felt great. And that’s good, but I don’t think I put myself in the hurt locker near enough. I need to find ways to be crueler to myself and deepen the pain threshold.

10. It’s time to get a power meter for the bike. Hopefully by Christmas.

11. Gotta get back to work on the hydration setup on the bike. I went old school at this IM with the Profile aero bottle up front and a standard down tube bottle, but there’s got to be a way to get the horizontally mounted bottle on the aero bars. In fact, an overall look at bike setup improvements is in order. Anything short of getting a Trek Speed Concept should be considered I’m thinking.

12. I really got into using my 2XU compression socks in the latter weeks of training for IM, and I used them in the marathon as well. I’d like to learn more about this technology, which socks work the best, how much compression is optimal, and whether the socks are better than the sleeves. I have plenty of theories on all this but I need more experience.

13. Never tried Red Bull in a race. Does it really boost you up that much?

14. I’m thinking about getting my USAT coaching license. I don’t know how that will help, and I don’t know if anybody would care to be coached by someone like me. Just a thought.

For now, that’s all the low hanging fruit I’ve managed to pick off the opportunity tree. I’m certainly open to suggestions. Maybe you’ve followed my training or know me well enough to see something I’m doing wrong or could improve on. I would absolutely LOVE to hear it if you have any suggestions. Thanks for reading!