Ironman Arizona Triathlon

Today’s post is not about education or the flipped classroom.  It is about one of my other passions: triathlons.

As some of you may know I have had an obsession with triathlons for the past fifteen years.  I am not sure what it is about triathlons that gets me, but I think a lot of it has to do with finding gratification in pushing myself with new and different challenges.  To that end last year I signed up to compete in the Ironman Arizona Triathlon. The race is this Sunday and I want to share the day with you.  The race is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride,  and 26.2 mile run.  Yea–This is a challenge–or maybe insanity.  So along with about 3000 other people I will enter the water in the Tempe Town Lake at 7:00 Phoenix time (9:00 Eastern).

I have kept track of my workouts via my Garmin for the past year and below is a summary of all the work done.  As I look at these numbers these are lower than they probably were because in some instances the watch wasn’t working or I ran on a treadmill or rode on a bike trainer, etc.

Type of Workout	Number of Activities	Distance	Time	Calories
Swimming	82	109 miles	53 hrs	35,000
Biking	162	3946 miles	242 hrs	125,000
Running	136	551 miles	91 hrs	56,000
Strength/Other	99	NA	83 hrs	9000
Totals	479	4679 miles	469 hrs	228,000

Not Alone

Getting ready for this race has been a huge commitment.  The commitment has not been just mine.  My family, especially my wife, Kris, has had to put up with me gone for long times to workout, decreased energy for home chores, and many other things.  I can’t thank her enough for letting me do this and supporting me throughout.  There have also been some great folks who helped me get ready.  My coach:  Kate Schnatterbeck from Team Tri-Umph (  www.tri-umph.us), and some of the guys I have ridden and biked with.  One group of guys even joined me for a 120 mile bike ride (what a glorious day it was)

And in the semi-narcissistic vein of this post, you can follow me during the race in real time.  I will be wearing a GPS tracking device during the bike and the run (the bulk of the race) and the official site will track me at specified locations on the course. If you are interested in following me you can go to:

• Official Ironman Triathlon Site:  http://ironmanlive.com and find the race tracker.  There you will see my splits occur.  My race number is 2842 which will make it easier for you to track me.
• Real Time GPS tracking. http://www.myathletelive.com/events/  This may be the best way to track me as you will have real time data on my journey.  At this site you will choose Ironman Arizona and then find my name.  They also have mobile apps for both android and apple devices.
• You can also watch live video of the event and there is a finish line camera where you could see me finish.  If you use the real time gps tracker you could anticipate when I will finish and tune in.  I anticipate it to finish somewhere between 5:30pm-8:00pm local time (7:30-10pm Eastern).  I anticipate the race taking me anywhere from 10.5hrs to 13hrs depending on many variables.

And if you want to know my goals for the bike and run.  I am hoping to ride at about a 19mph clip and run around 9:10 min/mile pace.  If I am faster, that would be good, if slower then I am probably having a hard time out there.

Thanks for hanging with me for this long post.