Coaching Kickoff Party

I had a dessert night kickoff party with my coach Barry. Barry is a Ultraman, read his blog here. His wife Johnna is a Ironman too; she baked cookies and served sliced peaches and cream. I brought half of a Paradise Cake from Kings Hawaiian. I hope you see the irony of dessert night at my Ironman training kickoff party. My friend Lynda was also at the kickoff party. This will be her first full Ironman. Barry made a deal with Lynda a long time ago, that when Lynda did her first Ironman, he’d pace right along side her. We basically had a huge fun night, laughing and telling stories and catching up with each other. We mildly talked about coaching and Ironman Mont Tremblant IMMT. I had such a fun time laughing about old rides and past triathlons and hearing funny / tragic stories from Barry, Johnna, and Lynda.

Goals for IMMT

I want to finish IMMT and feel good. I don’t want to die. I want to feel physically good when I cross the line. I don’t have a time goal in mind at this time, just finish happy. I’m sure Barry will pick out some times as I baseline my swim, bike, and run. Barry said he wants me to feel like it was the hardest thing I’ve ever accomplished, and at the same time that I had fun doing it.

Tools

I offered to connect with Barry on TrainingPeaks.com (TP). The cool thing about trainingpeaks is that the coach can prescribe (ahead of time) the workouts for the racer. The workouts can be viewed on website or on the mobile app, which is pretty nice. I also figured out a way to subscribe the TP calendar on my iPhone, so that all the workouts are entered on TP and show up on my native iPhone calendar. very cool. In the settings, I invite Barry, by email to connect to my account as a coach.

Big picture

What do I want out of coaching? Do I want to get faster? No. Not primarily. I want the insight and motivation and consistency. Coaches help strategically plan out events that lead up to the big event. He should guide me on what to focus on and what to not focus on. I’ll spend more time on this question so that we start on the right foot and go in the right direction. I want to be clear with what I want and don’t want.

Motivation

Barry said I have to have one singular thought to motivate me when it gets really hard. It has to come as are reflex. The first thing I think of to motivate me to keep going. Although there’s a lot of those fluffy picture/sayings floating through my head. For me, the motivation to keep going is – to be happy, enjoy every minute of this journey called my life.

Method

Starting out is plan out the big picture and calendar. What events do I do before the big IMMT? I asked Barry to help me pick out a marathon. I am a sucky runner and the run leg of IMMT is gonna suck. I need to build some confidence on the run leg. Finishing a marathon will be a huge mental confidence builder for me.

Race Preview

I had printed out the Race Courses. Swim course. Bike course. Run course. Lynda has done the 70.3 at Mont Tremblant, so she knows the course already. We looked at the course profiles and tried finding local similarities. The bike profile for IMMT is less elevation than at IMSG (70.3). So, the climbing is not as bad. There is only one transition area in town, so that’s nice. The T1, T2 point-to-point was a little nerve racking at IMSG. On race day it worked well, but all the planning and drop offs were very time consuming, and logistically mind-sapping. I’m glad this is just one transition. I can just focus on the special needs bags and nutrition.