“Do you even know how hard that is?”
“It can’t be that hard, I think I can do it.”
That’s the conversation that energized a near two-year journey to complete an IRONMAN Triathlon. Having no prior swim, bike, or run experience, I did what any logical tech-savvy twenty-something year old would do: get the gear to track my journey. I’m glad I did, and I’ve accumulated a large sum of data that makes writing down this story a bit easier.
First of all, why? Why would anyone train for an inordinate amount of time, waking up at 4AM and cover a distance of 140.6 miles? If I am being completely honest, I still have not figured out a deeper reason other than simply wanting to know if I could train my body & mind to endure the most physically taxing event I could think of.
Rebalancing my mind, body, and way of thinking.
Before I get into my three part journey, I want to put my entire two year training process into context. I read multiple books about how to train most efficiently in order to race the entire distance to my fullest capacity without getting hurt (and maintaining a full time job). The largest influence was PEAK, which taught me how to train deliberately.
Naive Practice < Purposeful Practice < Deliberate Practice.
Naive Practice — going through the motions, repeating what you normally do with the skill, without being challenged or having a set goal.
Purposeful Practice — outside your comfort zone but more focused, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and finding a way to stay motivated.
Deliberate Practice —it’s done in a well-defined field where it’s possible to differentiate between an expert and a novice. An experienced teacher/coach is actively involved by tailoring practice and learning techniques.
Ever heard of “hard work pays off” and “Practice makes perfect” ?— well, it doesn't really work that way. Most practice is naive practice, and it will not get you to a level of mastery.
These were the guiding principles for my entire learning period, and they not only influenced my training, but my personal and professional life as well.
1. Unmistakable (Strokes 🏊♂️ ) of Intention
Yes, I’ve read Atomic Habits & The Power of Habits, but those won’t help you when it’s 7AM on a Monday and your legs are incredibly sore from a 6-hour, 100 mile bike ride up to Hudson Valley the day before. What about harnessing the raw strength of your will power? Forget about it. Willpower has a hard time stopping me from grabbing a slice of pizza after work, everyday…
I made it my job (part time).
While at times, I was a sub-par student at school, at work I strive to overachieve. I knew if I made triathlon training my part-time job, I would cross the finish line. Like with any job, the honeymoon period is paired with a steep learning curve for the first few months as you adjust to the load.
Onboarding — after getting your new employee materials; bike, swimming gear, coach, and running shoes, it’s time for an information download. How do the tenured members of team manage to do so well? Someone taught them! So, deep in YouTube and blogs I went in order to absorb as much info on making my training as efficient as possible. After telling friends and colleagues about my goal, they immediately wanted to connect me with others who have been through this process. While a triathlon is an independent, non-team sport, it doesn’t have to be a lonely.
Core Role — after building the foundation, I started laying the bricks, one by one, to create the fitness level necessary to compete. This means having a plan before stepping foot on the treadmill or clipping onto the bike, I knew the exact time and effort needed to produce the most efficient output. Weekends, with their often seemingly longer and less stressful spirit, took the brunt of the training load. Since I was never much of a 8-hour Redzone Sunday kind of guy, they became stalwarts.
Naive — 3 hour bike ride ride, to simulate half the distance.
Purposeful — 3 hour bike ride: 45 min warm up at 50% power | 1.5 hour intervals of 20mins 85% power / 10mins 15% power | 45mins cool down
Deliberate — showing the data from my purposeful ride to a coach for input and perspective.
All repeat actions, no matter how exciting at first, become mundane. Like my actual profession, the day-to-day machinations of IRONMAN training need spice. These often took life in the form of podcasts, audiobooks, training locations, training buddies, and did I mention audiobooks? S/O to Colleen Hoover for hours of entertainment. The biggest motivation came in the form of the FTP or VO2 Max test, where I could see my heart & cardiovascular system (engine) get continuously stronger.
Pitch Day — every salesperson knows that while having a slide deck is a nice touch, engaging in dialog that’s actionable is all about utilizing past experience with situational knowledge.
Never do anything new on race day
Since my particular IRONMAN was in Italy, I had signed up with destination half-IRONMANs in Puerto Rico, Panama, Virginia, and North Carolina. This was to ensure I knew and was comfortable with traveling with my gear. I’m not going to spoil the ending here with my results; we’ve got two more sections to cover.
2. Endurance Training Literally (Cycles 🚴) Changes In Your Mind
Everyone always talks about meditation and its health benefits for both mind and body, and over the years I’ve tried and failed to “meditate”. I thought true mediation was seated and quiet — trying to put all distractions at ease. It never worked for me, I always found it boring or unpleasant.
Stick with me here as I take a bit of a detour..
During an IRONMAN, there is no use of headphones or any audio device for safety reasons. Therefore, a large portion of my training activities were open-eared so to say. At first, performing my running or cycling workouts routines without any stimulus felt like a chore. I would start analyzing situations in my current life or think about virtually anything else to distract myself from pedaling. Eventually, as I continued putting in the hours and mental effort, my mind became asynchronous with my body. I found myself in a meditative state on many of my long runs/rides; a state where I could pay attention to both my activity and surroundings (remember deliberate training), register incoming signals from my body, and have absolutely nothing going on in my brain. FOR HOURS. It was magical to be in this state of delicate trance, or zone, or some might call it, meditation.
This mind : body connection passed onto other parts of my life, giving me the ability to hyper-focus on specific work projects, increasing my feeling of overall calmness and patience.
For ultra-endurance, high-stress events, your mind will stop way before your body ever does if they haven’t been trained together harmoniously.
3. Forward (Strides 🏃♂️) Have No Finish Line
In hindsight, my training for this IRONMAN was too long; it nearly caused total burnout and fatigue and would have if it were not for the multiple smaller races I booked to keep up the energy. That being said, the grit that two years worth of training took was the reason these body, mind, and life changes happened.
I didn't want to make a straight line crooked or overcomplicate my path, but that urge for a challenge kept on nagging — it was time for a totally physically demanding challenge.
SOO… THE RACE.
4:00AM wake up call. 7:00AM 2.4 mile swim in the Adriatic Sea. 112 mile bike ride through Italy’s rolling hills. 26.2 mile run through Cervia, a coastal city. While there are bouts of nervousness, there is no stress. I’ve completed a deliberate 8,000+ miles in training, and now it’s time to enjoy the race and push my body to where I know it can go, and maybe a little bit further. My watch measured 12 hours 40mins to completion, and my chip time measured 13 hours 27mins, both of which exceeded my previously set goal for the distance. My back tire decided to explode on me at mile 96 of the bike leg and I had to get some mechanics involved, accounting for the delay.
“Life is experiences, their frequency and intensity”
Yes, I am happy I completed it. Yes, it felt absolutely, wildly, energizing crossing the finish line and hearing those words (you are an IRONMAN). How did it rebalance me? That is the title to this post, is it not?
It’s simple honestly, and it only took two years of training to figure it out:
- Practicing deliberately taught me what can be achieved and that scientifically, deliberate practice can make any human an expert in any field.
- Movement in both my mind and body led to harnessing; calmness or energy, focus or apathy. This gave me 25 hours in a day and the ability to utilize them effectively.
- Goals are important and pushing yourself is a must. However, it does not have to be in sports or a career. It can take the form of music, higher education, or chess — but the road is always going to be long and difficult.
What’s next? Something harder.
