Today completes my first four weeks of training on my way to Kona, with a stop halfway in Boulder. There’s one thing that everyone training for an ironman knows, and that’s fatigue. If you don’t feel fatigued, you’re not training enough. There are fine lines, however, as it is possible to overtrain and cause oneself too much fatigue. This was a pretty hefty week, with nearly 20 hours of training. After completing 3 hours of cycling today, I went for a run. My legs felt fine, but I was tired, so I decided to bag the run after two miles. I’m not concerned about my ability to run off the bike, and my legs actually felt good today. What I need to be careful of is pushing too hard, too soon. My first four weeks of training consisted of weeks with 10, 11, 15 and now 20 hours of training. That’s a pretty steep ramp up, but I’ve been careful not to do too much intensity. My body can absorb the volume. This is my main goal over the next six week anyway, and now isn’t the time to mess that up!
After today’s workouts I took a nap, which helped, but still felt like spending the afternoon on the couch. That is also the challenge of ironman training fatigue, it affects your brain as well, and mine didn’t really feel like doing too much. My wife was tired today, so my fatigue didn’t really have an impact on our lives. That’s the other balance point that is always essential in the ironman training sphere. Life is still around, it’s not all about ironman. Really!
Fatigue is the friend of an ironman. It’s necessary if you’re going to adequately prepare yourself. It’s important to become used to biking and running on tired legs. Most important is running on tired legs and even more important for me (and others) is not allowing ones legs to get too tired during the bike ride. Which is why I’m avoiding too much intensity while cycling and running, although I allowed myself some intensity on the bike yesterday and today. I can’t help myself!
I’ve got 15 weeks before Ironman Boulder and 32 weeks before Kona. I’ll need to get used to living with the fatigue and using it to make me stronger and fitter. This is just the beginning.
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