Ironman Training is Hard

The training hours are starting to add up and my burn out phase is peaking through.  Even though I've had some really great races this year, I'm thinking that racing 3 weeks in a row wasn't such a great idea.  Given that I really tried to "race" them this year the recovery needed was a bit more than I expected.  This caused me to miss a couple long rides which stresses my anal scheduling self out!

The time away from my family including 3 young kids seems worse this year. Thankfully i have the most supportive wife in the world and I really try hard to schedule my workouts around the family stuff.

In addition to that I don't have the training partners I had last year.  Jeff and Kevin were on a similar schedule and it was nice having a couple of really good guys to help push me along and suffer with.  Neither of them are racing Ironman this year and I miss having them out there.  One of the main reasons I signed up for this years race was to race it with my brother.  I'd hoped we would get to train more together and share that part of the journey together also.  Because of his work schedule and the fact we are on different programs we rarely get together to train.  Still a great experience catching up almost everyday on how things are going and still happy to be doing it again!

Okay, enough of the cry baby stuff.  Training is going pretty well and I'm improving in all 3 sports.  My swim is getting better due to a more focused workout plan with more emphasis on drills.  My bike has never been stronger and I'm chalking that up to all the hard trainer work I put in early on the season.  And my run has come along very nicely which I think is from all the form work and continued endurance base.  I'm really looking forward to Muncie and Louisville this year.  Given that I plan to take at least a couple years off before doing another Ironman I hope to make this a great one!