There is nothing more exciting than setting yourself a big audacious goal then setting a plan to try and get there. Travel, sport or financial I set and use goals all the time to keep me motivated and on track.
I remember while growing up as a teenager watching Mark Allen and Dave Scott racing in the Hawaii Ironman race. It was a 4.2 kilometer swim, 180 km on a bicycle and then running a 42km marathon all in a hot climate. I thought they were totally crazy, obviously not impossible to do but only for the full time professional athletes.
Fast forward 30 years and I start setting a goal so I could try to do one. After hearing about a few friends from my parkrun circles having a go, the crazy idea started to in creep into my head. These parkrun friends were not that much fitter than me and I wondered what sort of commitment it would take still working a full time, physical job with almost 2 hour commute 5/6 days a week.
I ask around in a few different circles and found one of my local triathlon clubs had a big crew of people just like me wanting to having a go.
A $40 Aud membership and I was in. The club membership was the only thing about this sport that ended up cheap. The club and their head coach had a training plan all dialed in. 8 to 10 hours per week training and I should be able to make the distance within the cut off time.
I did not really want to tell anyone I was I was thinking of having a go, but I could do a few weeks training and just see how things go trying to fit everything in. 8 hours a week spread over 6 days did not seem that bad, two trips the the local pool, one big bike and run morning on the weekend and just squeeze the rest in around work.
The crunch time comes when you pay the $1000 plus ironman entry fee for an event. It definitely feels like your committed and there's no way you want to miss any of your training plan. I started researching as much as I could, there was so many other things to get right and practice, other than just the training, transiting and having everything you needed. One of the tips I got from one of the more experienced athletes, was things will go wrong on such a long day, don't panic just work your way through what ever shows up.
I ticked off the days one at a time and got through 95% of the training plan, which was based on time rather than speed for a beginners like me. On the day was a lot slower than I was hoping for but was definitely happy to finish my first full distance iron man.
