2011 IM Preparation . . . Not good!

The week of the Ironman Texas has arrived. I leave on Wednesday, flying down to Dallas and then Rich Goode and I will be driving over to Houston on Thursday. I'm excited to have Camille, Emilie and Jonathan join me this year. They will be coming down on Friday.

The question that everyone is asking me now is . . . Are you ready? The short answer is "NO!" I have only myself to blame. I certainly had the time to train and prepare, but just didn't put in the number of workouts and hours that I probably should have. I'm placing a big bet on the fact that this Ironman course is not suppose to be as difficult as IM St. George. The major challenge with IM Texas (and the big X factor) is going to be the heat. Right now, it is predicted to be 90 degrees with scattered thunderstorms. I'm sure the heat and humidity are going to play a major part on my race, particularly since I've been training in cool New England weather.

As for the numbers, here are my results for the past 20 weeks of training compared to last year (2010 full year averages used) . . .

Total Workouts: 67 (3.5 avg per week) vs. 5.5 last year
Total Hours: 116 (5:49 avg per week) vs. 7:09 last year
Total Swim Miles: 30 (1.5 avg per week) vs. 2.6 last year
Total Bike Miles: 994 (49.7 avg per week) vs. 57.3 last year
Total Run Miles: 297 (14.8 avg per week) vs. 16.0 last year
Total Brick Workouts: 19 (1 avg per week) vs. 1 last year
Total Lbs. Lost: 10 (185 to 175) vs. 38 last year (210 to 172)

Now I certainly had a better foundation this year to begin my training, but you can see what a pathetic effort I put forth this year. I do plan on completing the race, but not sure about my time. Originally, I was hoping for a PR on what is expected to be an easier course. I was hoping to shave 10 minutes off the swim (Target 1:20:00), 25 minutes off the bike (Target 7:00:00), and 10 minutes off the run (Target 4:45:00), resulting in an overall time of around 13:30:00 (includes transition times). Again, given my lackluster preparation, I'm hoping now just to finish this thing. Stay tuned for my post race report in a week . . .