The Plan Begins

The training begins .No excuses .

I am inspired by Chuckie V 's recent blog post and McCormack's book :

I can only be as good as I can be .That is what I aspire to with the limitations of everything within and outside my control.

Chuckie V says  in :Happiness , Ambition and Pursuit

Of all the goals an athlete might possess I believe the most noble is that of reaching our ultimate potential, or at least giving an honest attempt in reaching our ultimate potential. Basically, making the most of our capacity. By the way, capacity is what we're capable of; capability is what we actually accomplish.

Its not about winning . McCormack is right about one thing ,the title in his book .I am here to win .All I have to do is Win. Winning for me is to reach my ultimate potential. It is that journey that I have blogged about and it is that walk we take each day that sets us apart from those who meander . It doesn't make one journey better than the other. It is a different experience.

Chris's other notable quote for me is:

The process of being a triathlete – training, surpassing limitations, developing strategy, finding the strength to endure the suffering – is transformative. You become a better person when you manage to do something as insane as swimming, biking, and running 140.6 miles in the same day.

I had a look at the masses of paper and information I have gathered in 5 short years .I have a picture of me biking and running my first triathlon. I was big and I was slow but it was transformative.

I have designed what I hope is a helpful and instructive plan to training for an IM .

Ross's response:

Well I got to look at your program and these are the figures I got from it on the first few weeks.


7 days a week and no break within the first month

Swim 3 hours per week, but I know you want to swim more

Bike 7 hours but that is at minimum and would increase more i think if you are riding to and from work as you say

Run is 7 hours per week with 2 interval sessions back to back and one long run.

Totals hours is 17 hours per week with increases to 20+ if the extras you told me about take place.



It is a lot of hours so early in the 18 weeks. It will not kill you but it seems a bit over the top. Good luck with it and keep me informed as to how you feel.

I think you will not be able to sustain it for 18 weeks and I think you will go into Busso really tired. I know you would love to go to Kona, but are you sure this will get you there.

Keep me informed as to how you are feeling along the way.


Good Luck
Ross

As I responded to Ross the hours are a little high but not as high as some programmes I have done or seen and is a result of the preparation for the City to Surf  with a recovery week after each 4 week cycle and a rest day on the Sunday after August .Further Thursday is a relatively light day as it is really an hour of efforts , either hill efforts or windtrainer with the rest of the riding at an easy pace. Well time will tell.

To paraphrase Macca .Why did he continue to race after so many failures at Kona . Simply because "I am madly in love with the journey of being an triathlete. I can't wait to see what's to come around the next turn".

I feel the same way . Let the journey begin.