24 April 2015
I'm now halfway through my fourth week of half-Iron training and I've passed the 10 hours per week mark, my first time to get past nine hours. While training for my Olympic the past few months, I averaged six and a half hours a week. I've read that the minimum for training for a half Iron is ten hours a week, but I believe that's raw swim/bike/run time. In addition to my cardio work six days a week (three workouts a week in each sport), I'm doing strength training three days a week and after every workout I do core work and stretch, which adds to the time.
I'm feeling strong, though, and have increased my longest distances. While I've walked marathons, I had never run more than three miles until recently. Now I'm up to five in one go. I'm also up to 30 miles on the bike, halfway to the peak of 60 coming later this year.
I was notified this week that I made it into the Chicago marathon via the lottery, which is very exciting. My half-Iron training plan is 16 weeks long, and my marathon plan is 18, so the two will overlap starting in June. To acknowledge this, I've updated the title of the blog to Trek to 96.5 (70.3 + 26.2).