About Me

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Texas, United States
Welcome to my blog. What is a triathlon? It's a swim, bike and run usually in that order. My goal is to give exposure and insight to triathlons along with encouraging living a healthy life style. My post will also contain my collective thoughts pertaining to my training experiences. Feel free to send an email to ej@trilifeblog.com with any feedback or questions you may have. facebook: www.facebook.com/TriLifeBlog

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Post IRONMAN


What to do post IRONMAN, or post any event for that matter? That’s a question many of us face. In 2011 when I completed my first full IRONMAN event I jumped quickly back in the saddle. That Thursday I did a hill ride on my bike that put my abdomen out of commission for over six months. It was a hard lesson learned, and not one easily forgotten.

Each and every one of us is different. We train, hydrate, recover, etc differently. Learning our own limits is very difficult to do. We gauge our training based on our race goals. Some of us have a finishing time in mind some of us just want to finish. Whatever our race goal may be we must do one thing, and that is listening to our body.

IRONMAN Texas was on my calendar this May. I made the decision way in advanced to take two weeks off. That didn’t mean I sat around and did nothing. I ended up having two weeks of unstructured workouts. I ran, road and swam when I wanted. If I didn’t want to work out that day, I didn’t.
The week after IRONMAN Texas was Memorial Day weekend. I got a chance to go to Beaver Bend State Park in Oklahoma. I ended up doing a couple trail runs in the park. Aside from the trail running, I ate horribly and did a whole lot of nothing. Again nothing structured, and it was awesome!

The second week after IRONMAN Texas was also unstructured. I believe I ran a little and even took my mountain bike out for a spin. For those who know me, know I do not ride my mountain bike. I’ve had it for five years, and road it less than 10 times. It was a nice change of pace.

I had an event on my calendar two weeks after my IRONMAN event, the Merrell Down and Dirty 10k trail run. I normally do not partake in these types of events, but again I wanted to change it up a bit so I intentionally signed up for this event early in the year to use as a post IRONMAN fun thing to do.

Post IRONMAN week three I took a look at my race calendar and decided to start my structured workouts again. As some of you may know, I’ve decided to change my focus for the second half of the 2013 year. I’m signing up for a 50 mile trail race that takes place in September, so my weekends will now be consumed with longer trail runs. If all goes to plan I’ll have my first 100k and 100 mile trail run in before the first half of 2014 is over.

I’ve also changed my riding focus up a bit. I signed up for the HHH triple threat which contains a mountain bike race, so I’m now putting in some time on my mountain bike.

I’m nervously looking forward to an off road tri which is coming up this weekend. I’m using it to simulate the HHH race feel. I’ve never been a big fan of not having full control of my body when racing. That’s the feeling I get when I’m on a mountain bike. I’m a one year old when it comes to mountain biking. A fellow Tri Junkie gave me some good advice, “Stay within yourself on the bike portion”. I’m going to make it a point to take this event light and easy. I just want to get the race experience under my belt.

Here I am five weeks after my IRONMAN event. I have some new goals set in front of me, and I’m healthy! Again lesson learned from 2011, so back to the question, what to do post event? Relax, go out and have a bit of fun. You trained hard to achieve your goal. Let it sink in and enjoy your life’s victory! Your mind and body will thank you for it. In the end it will make you a better athlete.

Thank you for reading this blog entry. As always feel free to email me any questions or comments you may have.

..ej