Half Ironman Training

 

I might have had a moment of insanity when I signed up for the Santa Cruz Ironman 70.3. A triathlon where I would bike 56 miles, run 13.1 miles, and – most significantly – swim 1.2 miles. If you’re a long-time reader of my blog, you’ll know that open water swimming is not my thing. And by not my thing, I mean I would rather jump out of a plane into a pit of fire-breathing dragons.

 

I owe that moment of insanity to my friend and frequent race partner in crime, Nicole. When she asked if I wanted to do this half Ironman with her, my heart immediately started pounding. But when have I ever been one to say no to a race, or more importantly, to a challenge? No matter how overwhelming or heart-pounding that challenge may be.

 

As you may know, I have done a few triathlons before. Though they were all Sprint triathlons – the shortest type of triathlon – because I was too terrified to swim any distance longer than 500 meters in open water. 1.2 miles is FOUR TIMES longer than that! And did I mention that it’s been four years since the last Sprint?

 

Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me this year. But as terrified as I was, I was also really excited. Triathlons are a lot of fun! I love the excitement of racing three different events. And I might as well admit (so that it’s out there in the universe and I can’t take it back) that it’s a life goal of mine to complete a full Ironman someday.

 

I found a training plan that wasn’t insanely time-consuming and tailored for someone who already has some swimming/biking/running experience. I wasn’t necessarily aiming for a specific time, but I did want to do well. Below is an example of a typical training week.

M	Tu	W	Th	F	Sa	Su
Rest	S: B: 45 min R:	S: 1200 yd B: R: 4.5 mi	S: B: 50 min R:	S: 1200 yd B: R: 5 mi	S: B: 45 mi R: 15 min	S: 1800 yd B: R: 11 mi

In general, the workouts were meant to be moderate effort but often included some higher intensity intervals throughout the workout to keep a competitive edge. The longer distances were on weekends, which worked well for me, but even still it was a time commitment nearly every day. Especially on days with “brick workouts” (two training types back-to-back), which, let’s be honest, was most days. I also continued strength training and stretching weekly because I'm a big proponent of a balanced workout routine. 

 

I won’t go into too much detail on the running part of my training, since running 3-4 days a week is old hat by now and I’m sure I’ve bored you enough with details on run training in the past☺. The one thing I’ll mention is about the brick workouts. On those days, I made a point to always run second/last because the run would be the last leg of the race. These workouts prepared me to get used to the feeling of starting a run when I’m already tired, and to get used to the feeling of “lead legs” right after biking. I actually felt that the plan didn’t include enough bike+run bricks, so I switched things around some weeks to work more of those in.

 
Now, on to the more interesting stuff (with lots of pictures!). How did I fare training for the swimming and biking segments? I tried to make the whole experience as fun as possible by doing events with friends, exploring more areas around Boston, and going on adventures while traveling. It honestly ended up being a very fun and memorable training period.

 

I’ll start with biking. Biking is something I really enjoy. I earned my biking endurance chops 8 years ago when I biked across the U.S with 4K for Cancer. And since then I’ve always included biking / indoor cycling as part of cross training for running. But racing on a bike is a whole new animal, especially for an entire 56 miles. How should I pace myself? I hoped I would figure it out as I trained.

I kicked off my training by biking in the 5 Boro Bike Tour in NYC with some of my 4K for Cancer teammates. I can never pass up an opportunity to bike with my 4K fam again. Even when it’s 40 miles in a downpour! Of course we had no idea it would be pouring the entire time when we signed up. Despite being miserably soaked, I had a blast. When else would I get the chance to bike through all 5 boroughs? In fact, the route was very similar to the NYC marathon, but in reverse, so it started in Manhattan and ended on Staten Island.

After that 40 mile “warm-up”, training officially started. I did all my shorter weekday workouts on an indoor spin bike and the longer bike rides on trails around Boston. Finding places to ride where I could get enough mileage in was a challenge. Plus, I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to riding in the city. Boston roads are hardly bike friendly and before I moved here, my sister warned me about people she knew that had died(!) biking in the city. So I tried to mostly stick to trails or remote areas, even if that meant driving out of the city to start my ride. At a coworker’s recommendation, I found that my favorite place to train was Blue Hills Reservation, a few miles south. The hills of Blue Hills were just what I needed to prepare for the hills of California’s coast.

 

Sometimes Jin or my friend Nick (one of the aforementioned 4K teammates) would join me on a training ride. In July the three of us did a ride in Maine called the Seacoast Safari, to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation – a cause near to my heart since I work on developing CF treatments. In fact my company has a pretty solid turnout at the ride every year. The 66-mile course along the coast of Maine was full of hills and gorgeous scenery. I felt strong on the ride so afterwards I was feeling pretty confident about tackling the hills in California. 

One week before the triathlon, Jin and I took a trip with his parents to Alaska. True to form, I made sure to get some last-minute training in by signing us up for a bike ride to explore the rainforest! Biking really is the best form of exploration.

Moving on to swimming. How did I go from terrified to capable of swimming 1.2 miles in the open ocean? It was a long, gradual journey.

 

Even though my official training was 12 weeks long and started in June, I was too anxious to wait that long, so I unofficially started in February when Jin and I took a trip to Turks and Caicos. We discovered that coral reefs were abundant and easily accessible off shore. No need for an expensive, touristy boat excursion. We just walked out to the beach from our villa, went out into the ocean with flippers and goggles and voila. Every day we swam around, exploring the reefs, and – you know it – searching for sea turtles! Of course swimming is a lot easier with flippers (they keep you afloat) and we weren’t trying to swim particularly fast or far. But it helped me gain some level of comfort being out in the open water for extended periods of time.

Oh, and by the way, we did a thing while we were there!

For the rest of the spring I stuck to the pool, slowly working my way up to being comfortable swimming 1000 yards continuously, which is where the training plan would start, and probably the most I’d ever swam continuously before. Once I began the 12-week plan, I had no trouble gradually working up my distance in the pool. In fact, I may have gotten a bit too comfortable in the pool because it wasn’t until early July that I attempted open water while visiting my parents at the lake. It was a bit of a rude awakening. Why is open water swimming SO much harder?

By now you’re probably thinking, hello, don’t you live right by the ocean? Yes, I do. It’s practically in my backyard. So why wasn’t I out there all the time? Well, I don’t have a good answer except that I was intimidated. And so I continued to put it off. I took baby steps. I joined the Boston open water swimming group on Facebook. Maybe if I pretend I’m one if them, I’ll become one of them. I learned that people went swimming in my backyard ocean all the time. But I still didn’t feel ready to join them.

 

Instead, I decided to go with the less threatening option of trying my first wetsuit swim in Lake Michigan while visiting my sister in Chicago. I grew up in Michigan; lakes were familiar territory. I did some research and found that Ohio Beach right smack in downtown Chicago is a popular triathlon training spot. There are even buoys set up to indicate quarter-mile increments from the shore. When we got there, I was relieved to see that in fact I wouldn’t be the only crazy person in a wetsuit and swim cap. (Putting on my wetsuit for the first time though is a WHOLE different story). I wouldn’t say it was my best swim. I mostly flailed around and had a few small panic attacks. But I got some distance in and discovered that I really liked swimming in a wetsuit. It helps you float!

After that I felt a little less intimidated about the ocean back home. I only had four weeks until race day to squash my fear. I chose to swim in Pleasure Bay. It’s about a half-mile wide and a popular spot for kite surfing, mostly because it’s enclosed. So it had relatively calm waters and – crucially – some form of land on all sides. Even if that land was far away, the fact that I could see it all around me was key. And so, every week until race day, I swam there with Jin, who is a much more experienced swimmer. We’d swim across and then back to total 1 mile. And every week I felt my comfort and confidence growing. I still had those little panic attacks, suddenly gripped with the overwhelming feeling of being stranded. But they were getting further apart and when they came, I practiced mental exercises to push them aside.

And so, as race day approached, I felt as ready as I would ever be. I was still extremely nervous about the swim, but mostly I was excited! Excited to put my training to the test and hopefully, ultimately, become an Ironwoman.