The Beginning of the Journey

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  I officially took my first step yesterday and this blog will be along for that journey.  I was down in Madison on Sept 10th for a large chunk of the day to register for the 2013 Ironman Wisconsin.  For those of you who are not aware of what an Ironman is allow me to explain.  An Ironman triathlon is an ultra-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, and finished with a 26.2 mile run.  It is one of the longest events of its type.  There are only 31 Ironman races throughout the world in a year and only 16 in the USA.  The elite male triathletes complete this distance in about 8:30 and females in about 9:30.  The course is open for a total of 16 hours which still leaves many people on the course trying to officially finish.  Many people remain on the course to finish the distance even though they do not "officially" finish.  In short an Ironman Triathlon is the Superbowl of triathlons.  Some have it on their bucket-list to just finish one, others race them for a Kona Slot (the Ironman World Championships are in Kona, HI in October), and the elites compete as career triathletes.

I am using this blog to document my journey.  I want to do this for a few reasons.  First, to share what it is I am exactly going through on a weekly basis as I train for this event.  Secondly, I think doing this will serve as a source to keep me motivated during the long dog days of summer.  Also, I really don't know when I will do another one, if ever, so I figure I will be able to look back at this to remind me of everything I went through just to push myself through 140.6 total miles to simply cross a finish line.

So, as I stated earlier, I was down in Madison yesterday to register for the 2013 race.  The way registration works for this and all events is, they open registration the day after the race on site at 9:00 am and allow all those in line to register first before opening registration up online.  If you choose to volunteer for any aspect of the race you are given priority for registration over general registrants.  To take advantage of this, I volunteered on Thursday the 6th.  I assisted with athlete registration.  So on Monday, I woke up early and packed the Jeep and got the girls up and ready and we were on the road by 6:15 am for Madison.  We got in line at 8:25 am and the line was about a half mile long.  I was a little nervous due to the fact that I had a 14 month old and a 2 year old with me.  Luckily they were AWESOME, perfect, actually.  We got into the registration room at about 11:15 am, nearly 3 hours later! After a minor scare of my credit card being denied, we got things figured out and eventually got registered.  Turns out the guy that registering athletes entered my cards expiration date incorrectly a couple times and my Capital One locked my card.  Luckily, I was able to use my debit card, whew.  

As of today, there are 361 days until race day....seems like forever away to be honest, but I know it will be here before I know it.  Until then, I have a few things going on in my life.  On October 7th, I'll be running the Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee.  I have been training pretty hard for this race, as kind of a redemption race from the 2011 Boston Marathon.  I'm shooting for a sub 3:00 finish.  I'll be ecstatic even with a 2:59:59 finish.  After that race I plan on taking some time off to recover and recharge mentally for whats to come in 2013.  I have put together a training plan that will hopefully get me ready for the Ironman.  I officially begin "training" for it on December 11th.  Below is a graph of total weekly training minutes for my training plan.

For those of you who don't know me or my story, here is a short background on me and my life.  I am 28 years old and married to the best wife imaginable.  My wife is Sarah and we have been together since she asked me to the Homecoming dance our freshmen year of high school.  We have now been married for 5 years.  She has been the most supportive and accepting - for the most part :) - then again, she did let me register to do the Ironman next year... haha.  We have 2 of the cutest girls I know.  Maya is our oldest and is going to be 3 in October.  Delaney is just about 15 months and is a little devil.  She is never content sitting still and is always exploring.  We have a dog and 2 cats.  So as you can tell we have a full house.  I work for a local Sheriff's Office as a Patrol Deputy.  I have been working 3rd shift now for almost 2 years which definitely makes training all that much more interesting.  I have done 6 marathons, including the 2011 Boston Marathon and numerous other shorter road races.  I have completed 3 half Iron distance races and again, numerous shorter distance races.  I would consider myself to be a pretty competitive triathlete/runner.  I am always trying to place within my age group.    My plan is to update this blog with a new post at least once every week or two, so thanks for reading and I hope you continue to read and follow!