It all starts now

So, my entry into Outlaw seems in the distant past already (3 weeks ago!!) and I have the pleasure of knowing that 5 other ATC members have entered the same event. This could work one of two ways. We could work together over the next 10 months and train long and hard, bouncing off each other and get the best out of ourselves, or I could get completely phased and demoralized by the constant progression of the others and by my seeming inability to keep to a training schedule / progress in any way etc , etc.

Hopefully it will be the former.

Training Plan

In any case, I think that I'll have to stick largely with my own training schedule that will look something like this:
For the period up to early Feb I'll be concentrating on Technique work, especially with running. Hopefully it will promote efficiency.

This will lead in to Speed work between Feb and April, then start to lengthen the work and incorporate long-duration Endurance building brick sessions (swim into run, cycle to run sessions).

I've compiles a training Calendar that will help me stick to some kind of schedule. For these early stages I'm not too fussed about mixing up the scheduled tasks, so long as I keep the spread of work similar on a week by week basis.

It will mainly be based on two / three early morning swims each week before work, two / three evening runs or bike sessions (rollers in my shed - I'll get some pictures of this), then a long session over the weekend, probably mountain bike or road bike.

Using the weekly plan, there will then be a further training rotation where week one to three will get increasingly harder sessions, with week four then being a relatively gentle 'recovery' week (if that makes any sense).

My training schedule will also be hampered by the fact that I sometimes need to stay away from home during the week for work. I'll just have to make sure I get a hotel with a gym or pool, and take my trainers! Sometimes that is the best way to pass the time when you're away from home ... go exploring on a run!

I'll try and track these activities on my internet training page and see if I can work out how exactly to link them to the Blog site. It may need to be linked to my Google+ account.

There are numerous types of web-based training log sites available. It’s difficult to know exactly which one is best. I've an account on STRAVA which is a great cycling based tool that logs maps of any routes completed (via the data from a GPS enabled computer thing link my Garmin 301) and then automatically compares any hills climbed on this route to all other members, then creates a league table. You can compare times against friends / rivals or previous rides and assess your increase (or otherwise) in performance. Now, this is a little competitive for me, but it can be quite interesting!! Strava has recently introduces a running section too so it is a little more able to cope with the range of Ironman training, but I have difficulty in that I have a Blackberry, and Strava doesn't support this device. Loathed to get an alternative just to cope with this!

The alternative is MapMyTri, which by its very name, caters for all training formats, but is not quite so specific as to place rides / runs on a league table. May be much more appropriate for me as Ironman is more a competition with yourself (at my level anyway!).
MapMyTri page: http://www.mapmyfitness.com/my_home/

Again, hope my blagging makes sense. Let me know if there are any specific details of my training that you'd like to hear about.

Will.

History of Ironman

So, introduction to my Blog over, now to hopefully explain a little about the creation of Ironman .......

History of Ironman:

It was on the West Coast of the USA during the mid 70's that multi-discipline sports endurance first kicked off with locally organised short-distance triathlons and single discipline endurance events. Keen athletes would naturally seek out fresh new challenges.

The idea for the original Ironman Triathlon arose during the awards ceremony for the 1977 Oʻahu Perimeter Relay (a running race for 5-person teams). Among the participants were numerous representatives of both the Mid-Pacific Road Runners and the Waikiki Swim Club, whose members had long been debating which athletes were more fit, runners or swimmers. On this occasion, U.S. Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that a recent article in Sports Illustrated magazine had declared that Eddy Merckx, the great Belgian cyclist, had the highest recorded "oxygen uptake" of any athlete ever measured, so perhaps cyclists were more fit than anyone. CDR Collins and his wife Judy Collins had taken part in the triathlons staged in 1974 and 1975 by the San Diego Track Club in and around Mission Bay, California, as well as the 1975 Optimist Sports Fiesta Triathlon in Coronado, California. A number of the other military athletes in attendance were also familiar with the San Diego races, so they understood the concept when Collins suggested that the debate should be settled through a race combining the three existing long-distance competitions already on the island: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 mi./3.86 km), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 mi./185.07 km; originally a two-day event) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.219 mi./42.195 km).

From this initial discussion, John Collins and his wife organised the first event, held in Feb 1978.

Until that point, no one present had ever done the bike race. Collins calculated that by shaving 3 miles (4.8 km) off the course and riding counter-clockwise around the island, the bike leg could start at the finish of the Waikiki Rough Water and end at the Aloha Tower, the traditional start of the Honolulu Marathon. Prior to racing, each athlete received three sheets of paper listing a few rules and a course description. Handwritten on the last page was this exhortation: "Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life", now a registered trademark.

With a nod to a local runner who was notorious for his demanding workouts, Collins said, "Whoever finishes first, we'll call him the Iron Man."

The first years event attracted only 15 entrants by word-of-mouth alone. Of the 15, only 12 were to finish on the day. Year two brought 50 entrants, but due to poor weather on the day, only 15 started.
By chance, there was a reporter from the US based Sports Illustrated magazine in the Island covering a local Golf tournament that had been hit by the weather. He was instructed to cover this low-key event for the next month edition. The reported became engrossed with the magnitude of the endeavours of the athletes and filed a 10-page report, the publishing of which drew hundreds of enquired to Collins for the next year.

The event grew over the couple of years and the organisational responsibilities passed to Valerie Silk. It was she who moved the event to the less urbanised Hawaii Island and the now iconic location of Kona. In 1982, she also moved the staging of the event from Feb to October (hence record books show two sets of results for 1982).

Since the early days, the event has become so popular that strict entry criteria for these 'World Championships' in Kona have been introduced and the world series of M-dot events have been used as 'qualifiers'.

Now, the M-dot is now a trade-mark much as F1 or McDonalds is nowadays (someone holds the rights to the mark and typically wishes to reap the rewards of the marketing) so other Long Distance triathlons such as OUTLAW cannot call themselves 'Ironman', but in my opinion, if we are being picky about calling a Long Distance triathlete finisher 'Ironman', then it should be pointed out that it was only the single winner of the yearly Hawaii event that could be held as 'Ironman' by his peers. A discussion point for some I suppose!