IMAZ - 5 weeks (I am ready!!!)

Totals for week: Swim 3000 yards. Bike 140m. Run 23m.

Good week of training. Started out slow, but finished strong. Needed some recovery time from hard workouts last weekend. Business travel took me out of pocket for a couple of days too.

Wed, biked 30m on my trainer, slow at 15.0 mph pace. Decided to make "easy" workouts real easy. I struggle with managing volume and intensity and tend to go too hard all the time, resulting in fatigue and junk miles. So I went easy enough to just get the blood going in my legs again after sitting on a plane for two days.

Thurs, easy 5m run through the neighborhood. No problems.

Sat, big day. Swam 3000 yards straight at 2:10/100 pace. Wanted to swim straight since I swam poorly the previous week. Swam ok, but struggled to keep pace. Biked 110m on the trainer in my den. Took 7 hours and 3 movies. Thank God for good ole classic movies! The first 4 hours were ok, but the last 3 hours were tough, both mentally and physically. Not my best ride, but ok nonetheless. Neither swim nor bike were my best, but the key is I finished, building mental confidence as well as strength and endurance.

Sun, ran 18m! My longest run ever, at least until next weekend when I run 20m! Ran pretty well actually. Slowing down my pace to run further really helps. Plus, better nutrition on the run is helping. Mixing in gels/ecaps in some flasks on my fuel belt makes the run better. Felt tired, but not dead after. Could have kept running. Finished strong. Targeted a 10:30/m pace and finished spot on!

Made two mistakes on the run though. One, I turned around at 5m to run with a friend. Bad idea. She was doing some speed work while I was doing long slow distance. The two don't mix. Thankfully, I quickly figured this out, turned around, waved good bye, and got back to my own program. It cost me a little gas in the tank, but not too much. Two, at 15m I turned it up a notch thinking I could push my way home for the last 3 miles. Bad idea. I can do this on a 6m, 8m, or 10m run, but not on an 18m run. Learned that I can only do this for about 1m or less at this distance. Again, it cost me some more gas in the tank, but I recovered well and finished strong anyway.

I am ready! Overall, I am feeling good physically and mentally. My confidence is high! Don't know what my finish time will be. There are no guarantees and so many things can go right or wrong on race day. It is my first full IM, so I'll just have to go slow, stay patient, disciplined, and most of all FOCUSED! Just focus on the swim first, then the bike, then the run. Bike and run are 3 loops each, so I can focus on one loop at a time on each one.

I still have a couple more long weekends left to go, then taper, then race day! In the words of the A-team commander, "I love it when a plan comes together!" Whatever my time is, I will be thankful, learn from it, and plan to do better in Nov when I return for round two of IMAZ Nov! My base will already be high, my confidence high. So all I need to do is keep working smarter and harder! More to come!