Now what?

So its been about 11 days since race day and I am enjoying the recovery. While I have gone on a couple runs and a couple of swims I have yet to get back on my bike. I was going to get back on today as it was a beautiful day but got a little distracted and before I knew it daylight had vanished. I'm planning on getting back on tomorrow and going for a nice ride for a couple hours. My fitness seems to be staying at a good level as I have felt great on my swim and runs. I am excitied to get back on the bike tomorrow and hope that it puts a little my spring into my step.

I say this because I feel as if I am struggling with my recovery. I have gone through a full range of emotions since the race and am not entirely sure how I feel about everything, let me explain. To swim 1.2 miles, bike 56, and run13.1 miles in your first triathlon is a very good accomplishment, or so I have been told. After the race my family told me how proud they were and happy to see me finish. I was expecting this huge feeling of euphoria as crossing that finish line would pay off all my training, it didn't. I finished in 6 hours 5 minutes and 58 seconds. I wanted to finish no later the 5:30 and I failed. I dont feel as if traveling the 70.3 miles was the great of an accomplishment, especially finishing 35 minutes slower then I had anticapted. I also did not know the run was the brutal with all the hills, but then again the reflects the lack on training I had doing my recon of the course. In the end I have this empty feeling of what could have been. Now the Ironman was the following day and I was completely engulfed into that event so maybe that overshadowed my race and had me forgot or not realize what I had just accomplished. But for some reason I feel as if what I did was not hard at all even though I was reduced to walking the hills on the run. If I am to gain anything from this empty feeling though it is definately great motivation for next year at Ironman Wisconsin.

While I am continually training, right now I am taking a very laid back approach to that. If I feel like running I go run, if I wanna swim just a few laps on the pool and see where my other strokes stand by all means I will do so, and if I don't want to ride my bike for 10 days I see no problem in that. As laid back and easy as it is, it still at the same time is very hard. I went from a strict program of doing intervals one day, to time trails the next,to recovery runs, brick workouts, long days in the saddle and had to do it. Now I have the option of what I want to do, when I want to do it, and I don't know how to react to that. This freedom is weird to have and I need to get back into a routine soon. I am hoping to finish this week off with some good workouts and get into that more established routine next week.

I am currently reading Joe Friel's "Triathlete's Training Bible" and starting to prepare for the next year of training for Ironman. I am excitied and anxious and want to get this ball rolling. This year was a year of trial and error. I know where my fitness stands now and I know what kind of training I can commit to and most importantly I know exactly where I want to be next year on September 12th. So over the course of the next couple of weeks I am going to write out my training program that will lead me up to race day. My program will consist of off-season training, weight training, base miles, and finally a 24 week Ironman specific training program that I will start in March. While I am extremely excitied for all of this to unfold the one thing that will be hardest is waiting for the cannon to go off on race morning and dreaming of crossing the finish line for the next year. Until then it is up to me to prepare myself as best as I can to put forth the performance that I know I am capable of.

Thats it for now, I have realized this is going to be the toughest part of the season as I wait to get back into full training again, but I just need to enjoy this time and get my gameplan set for 2010/

Ride On!
Ben