Articles > Glorified Training Day

October's full moon is just around the corner.

Ironman might have been a rosy and abstract notion many months ago, but with less than a week to go before you test your mettle, Ironman is a decidedly real and more intimidating concept. It becomes very easy to lose perspective on the magnitude of the event and its challenges.

Panic begins to creep in. Everyone looks super fit at the Pier, have I done enough training? What should I eat? Exactly how many calories do I need? The helpful folks at the carbo-load dinner suggested I try a different fuel? Should I try salt pills? Will three spare tires be enough? Should I make some final adjustments on my position? Perhaps a new pair of running shoes would be helpful…

Years of competing and working with athletes make me very familiar with the scenario described above. When I was in a similar panic before a race many years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts.

I suddenly realized that were this simply another training day with my buddies, I would be relishing the moment and would not be paralyzed with all these basic questions about what to do in nearly every aspect of the race!

Certainly, my long training outings did not lack for epic qualities of difficulty, duration, and strong training partners hoping to pound me into submission. Yet, remarkably, these outings always turned out very well with routine, common-sense planning.

And so was born my Glorified Training Day principle. If dozens of challenging and at times epic training outings had gone well without a week of panicked planning to get things just right, then so too would my Ironman race effort. Yet, because Ironman can never be fully simulated in training, I conceded a bit of status with the adjective glorified.

Hence, okay to a little bit of nerves, okay to a little extra verification on bike set-up and fueling, but a big no thank you to last minute changes and new anything. After all, you simply wouldn't have the time for all this cumbersome worry were this one of your epic training days.

Enjoy your week in Paradise!