Ironman March Challenge Wrap Up

As a reminder, I committed to participate in Caitlin's (from Health Tipping Point) Ironman March Challenge where I will complete the Ironman distances in swimming, biking, and run/walking during the month of March.

I didn't give a Week 4 update, but you can see previous weeks' updates here, here, and here.

The last full week of the challenge, I hit a wall. Well, it actually started out great the first three days with a 1,000 meter swim, 14 mile spin ride, and 2.85 mile run respectively. Monday the 25th was my normal yoga class, then Tuesday I skipped the 6 am spin class I've been trying to make my "normal" class and just figured I would go to the 5 pm one. But then I started the juice cleanse Tuesday morning...

I was so weak by time I left work on Tuesday, there was no way I would make it through a 60 minute spin class. "I'll just go tomorrow," I thought.

Well after only 4 hours of sleep because of hunger induced insomnia (seriously, I was so stupid), I didn't feel like doing much Wednesday either. Then Thursday I missed the 6 am spin again and couldn't find an evening class, so I just went to yoga (my favorite instructor is going to be out for 3 weeks and it was her last class).

So I ended Week 4 with just an additional 1,000 meters of swimming, 14 miles biking, and 2.85 miles running to add to my totals. Not the best week for the challenge, but looking back it's not horrible for this point in my training calendar either.

For the last 3 days of the challenge, I started out at the pool Friday with a 1,200 meter swim, thus completing 4,100 meters this month, a few laps over the 2.4 miles required for the challenge.

Friday after coming home from the pool, I was still in my flip flops and had a little clumsy incident that involved a chunk of skin the size of a quarter being ripped off the top of my big toe on my left foot. So there's that now.

Saturday, I only got 5 miles of biking in. But the good news is I picked up my bike from being tuned up and it's riding great! I just timed the ride way too wrong and I hadn't eaten in several hours and didn't have any energy to do a longer ride. (All excuses I realize.)

Admittedly I have had a very lazy week and weekend, and that carried over to today with the holiday and the crummy weather we have, I didn't get out and do anything today.

So my final challenge totals were:

Swimming: 4,100 meters
Bike: 58 miles
Run/Walk: 19.49

So obviously I didn't complete all of the biking or running totals. After the showing I had the first two weeks, I really had no way to hit the bike totals, but if I hadn't hit that wall this week I should have hit the run totals.

All that to say, I do think the challenge was a success because it helped jump start my triathlon training. I went from swimming and biking very low totals to swimming 1,200 meters at a time and biking 20+ miles a week. So I'm proud of myself for that.

I have 6 weeks until the first race on my calendar this season, and being that it is a mini spring triathlon (200 yard swim, 10 mile bike, 2 mile run), I know I am ready for it and I can start focusing on my 2nd race (TBD), which will be a longer sprint triathlon, and maybe even an Intermediate distance race at the end of the summer.

I can't wait until May 18th and I'm out there again!