It’s been 3 weeks of training with Barry as my coach. During that time, I’ve dealt with signing up for Ironman, a foot injury, and school starting.

Overall Results

In the three weeks, I only missed 1 full workout. It was on a Sunday, and I didn’t prepare the family activities to support leaving for a couple hours. It could have worked, but I ended up cleaning and adjusting my bikes at home. Due to injury, the running stopped and was replaced with lots of swimming. I’ve had one day completely off. It was not scheduled that way, but I saw a conflict coming and doubled up the day before. Overall, I feel pretty good that I could stay on top of the schedule. Some folks gave me lots of grief about increasing my workouts so much; they feared I’d burn out. I took it as part of coaching. I wanted to show my coach that I was serious about training with him. If he put down a workout, then I would do it, whole-heartedly. I would do it on time and to the full extent, with the full effort asked for. Sure, there were days with time constraints. I had to stop and pack it up. On those days, I usually trimmed off the warm up or cool down, and completed the main sets.

Training Peaks.

Scheduling is key. Barry fills the Training Peaks with a week’s worth of workouts. I can see what I’ve got on my plate for the week and make sure it’s all ready to go. I set TP to email me the workouts the day before. I also subscribe the TP calendar on my iPhone so I get all the workouts as meetings on my calendar. I use that view as a reminder card at the pool. I take a screen shot of the workout notes and put the screen shot as the locked wallpaper. Then, at the pool deck, my phone is in a plastic bag, and I just hit the power button to view the workout details. I hide the phone in the mesh pool bag.

Family routines

The kids went back to school a week ago. We’re still settling into a regular schedule. I take a carpool dropoff morning at 7am and go to work a little early. Then, I can leave a little early for an afternoon or evening workout. I have been home most evenings with the family for dinner, homework, TV shows (America Ninja Warrior, British Premier League Soccer, America’s Got Talent, Last Comic Standing). I take son to soccer practices. I take my daughter to fun runs and birthday parties. I help with the dishes, trash, laundry, pay the bills, wash the cars. We even did a 3000 piece puzzle. I’ll share it when we finish it. We met our parents for dinner a couple times. Try to act normal.

Pre-pack gear

I pack my workout bag the night before. I don’t forget a full set of dress clothes. Just in case I keep a full set of clothes at my desk at work, including a belt.

I load my bike the night before. When I’m carrying more than one passenger in the morning, I attach my bike rack the night before. The kids are always running into the car with seconds to spare.

PTC Overlap

Working with Barry on my schedule, we’ve worked in all the usual PTC workouts in my schedule. Saturday rides, Thursday bricks. This is great, because I can see my friends. I hope to continue this magic even, as the workout loads increase. Since there’s 19+ folks going to IMMT next year, it’s likely that we can throw out the workout schedule and there’ll be a few folks to do it together.

Injury. Take proper care and follow directions.

Take time to go get injuries properly taken care of. I went to see Dr. Smith several times with follow up. I was diligent to do the therapeutic exercises to strengthen the arch. I bought the night splint and wore it. I bought slipper with arch support and wore them around the house. To make peace with my wife, the slippers never leave the house, so they keep the floor as clean as bare feet.

Work workouts

Friends at work like to run and bike and swim. A group rides the River Trails on Wednesdays. I don’t ride with them though. It’s a choice to be at home on Wednesday. A group likes to swim at lunch on Tuesday. I like to swim at lunch, so I join them. Another group runs on Mondays. I have declined to join for the same family reason. I have chosen to focus all the weekday workouts in the mornings, except for Thursday night bricks.

IMMT

Since I started being coached, I’ve signed up for Ironman Mont Tremblant. That’s huge for me. I’m so thrilled to be actually signed up. I’m totally blown out that 19+ friends from PTC are joining me on this crazy journey. It’s a once in a life time experience. I reserved the hotel, cuz it sells out. I reserved the bike transportation, cuz I had an awesome coupon code.

Sleep

I try to go to bed earlier now. With all the morning workouts, I need to get out the door by 6am or earlier. So, I need to be laying down and eyes shut before 10:30pm. This is not hard for me. The puzzle is tempting to stay up, but the TV is easy to leave and the bills will always be there. So, laying down is not a big deal.