Ironman CDA

“I swam a little slower than I expected too.”  It’s funny, that’s what I say about all my races so I guess I need to adjust my swim expectations. 

I took things pretty easy on the bike.  My average heart rate for the bike was 144, which is lower than normal.  I was hoping that I could bust out a 3 hour marathon if I wasn’t too tired after the bike. 

I had adjusted my running coming into this race I reduced my weekly miles down to 23-30 a week and my weekly long run was only 13 miles.  I also increased my speed doing about 5-10 miles at 5:27 pace and 5-10 miles at 6:00 pace.  I had heard about some people who had success reducing volume and increasing intensity.  I hoped that the increased speed would more than compensate for the decreased volume.  This race was my test to see how it worked.  The first miles of the marathon felt easy, 7:00 minute miles were effortless.  But it got harder and harder and I completely fell apart toward the end of the marathon.  My quads hurt worse than they have ever felt in previous races, I really wanted to walk.  I am very disappointed in my run time.  I think I will probably go back to doing a longer long run each week.

My swim was a little slower than I wanted, My bike was a little slower than I wanted and run was a lot slower than I wanted. But looking at the big picture I feel very lucky to be able to do these races.