Ironman Journey - The WHY!

WHY - the most important question you should ask yourself while going through the grind! You need to dig yourself really deep to get the answer, and sometimes the answer would be very vague, but don’t give up, keep digging.
You might be thinking why it’s so important go get the answer for WHY!, but I can assure you it’s important, coz when you will be going through the long and hard trainining sessions, when you encounter a flat tyre, or when you might be feeling the cramp on your legs while running, that ANSWER will help you to STICK!
For me, my why started from getting inspired by my boss, but when I digged real deep, I realized that it’s about stretching your limits, challenging yourself and putting yourself in places where you would haven’t imagined, be it learning to swim, fixing a flat on the highway, swimming in the backwaters of a dam or running in the afternoon. I was constantly putting my system under stress and that what builds and prepares you to achieve success.

What’s your WHY!

Ironman Journey - The Execution

The easiest and the hardest thing in our Ironman journey was executing the plan. It’s a simple Execute -> Learn -> Execute loop.

Why it’s easy?
It’s easy because you don’t need to spend time in thinking and planning. Just get up, look at the plan and don’t stop till you are done. One of the best thing we did was took a printout of the whole 32 week plan, and I always kept that plan with me. Whenever I wanted to check what’s the workout for tomorrow, I referred to it. I’ll recommend you to do the same. Also when you see that you are moving with the plan it gives confidence.

Why it’s hard?
It’s hard because you have to go through the pain of doing things which you might have never done and even thought. Irrespective of how much tired you are you still have to get up and do the workout of the day. Yes! it’s HARD, but it’s FULFILLING!

Sometimes you might miss a session or two and you will BAD but that’s OKAY!!! Stop beating yourself and focus on the day’s workout.

All I learned that you have to live in present, in the moment, focusing on improving yourself without being sad about past and anxious about future.

Enjoy the journey!

Ironman Journey - The Plan

To bring your dream into reality you need a plan. In the age of Internet any plan is just few keywords away, but that also brings the problem of “CONFUSION”. The more plans you see the more confused you will be. When I decided to do my first Ironman, I did the same, started crawling the Internet for Ironman plans and over the period of time I was exhausted, intimidated and more confused than ever.
To break this, one strategy that works is to find a plan which looks similar to your existing schedule or focuses on building the base and slowley progressing towards achieving your goal.

After going through numerous plans, I decided to go with this 32 weeks plan. The best part of the plan was it was quite balanced, has all the required components like cycling, swimming, running and strength training. It also has periodization covered, which includes Base, Build 1 & 2, Peak and Taper phases. Overall very well laid out plan.

Once I decided the plan, there was no looking back. I never questioned any part of it and stopped looking for other options.

The successful execution of the plan was definitely taking us closer to the success and we felt it after every session.

Sometimes you might need to de-tour from the plan for e.g., to participate in a race or some personal engagement, but the soon you come back the better it is.

In the end I’ll say once you zeroed down your plan, look no further, keep you head down and start working on it.

The best thing I did was taking a printout of the whole plan and I kept it with myself all the times, having a physical copy in the digital age is definely a cumbersome task, but do it. Once you touch and feel your plan, you will get the power and strength to execute it.

Dream it! Do it!

Cheers,
Ram

Ironman Journey in summary

On 12th November 2016, I alongwith my younger brother and a friend did our first full Ironman triathlon in Langkawi, Malaysia. In this post I would like to summarize our journey / points that helped us in becoming successful in one of the toughest single day event.

- Dream : Before you start you need to dream, breathe and live your Ironman journey. You need to set aside all the unnecessary tasks and plans and you should be ready to sacrifice some of your personal and professional time.

- Plan : Plan your journey. Internet is full of everything and all sort of plans but you need to filter out what suits you and go along with your schedule. Too easy and too hard might break your momentum so choose wisely. Avoid distractions, once you have chosen a plan, STICK TO IT!

- Execute : Execution is fun, coz you don’t need to do any further analysis, just follow the plan, do the required workouts on a given day. DON’T STOP TILL YOUR ARE DONE!. Sometimes you will derail from the plan due to presonal and professional commitments but get back as soon as possible. Don’t regret about yesterday, be positive and move forward.

- Obstacles / Show Stoppers: Find your obstacles and show stoppers as soon as possible. Work on it, find ways to get over it. We realized that taking the tyre out and putting it back was taking long time in case of flat, so we practiced it over and over. Researched on it and found new ways to fix the issue. Uncovering show stoppers builds resilency in your plan and execution.

- Train like a Commando: Ironman training is similar to that of commando training, you need to be yourself all the times. If something goes wrong, don’t expect others to help, HELP YOURSELF! Build a commando attitude!

- Race : On the race day think of it like another long practice session. Execute it the way you have done it in your practice sessions, DON’T TRY ANYTHING NEW!, but be ADAPTIVE to change. While racing we faced heavy rains in our cycling course, instead of thinking about it we quickly adapted and enjoyed it.

- Soak In : Once your race is over, you might not realize that you have achieved your Dream by flawless Execution overcoming Obstacles and finished the Race, so give yourself time to Soak In to the newly transformed YOU!

- Life Lessons : Try to find our life lessons from your journey and make it a part of your routine life. Whether it’s working independently, commitment, dedication or overcoming obstacles or adapting to change. I realized that I need to work independently, work on the areas which are slowing me down and be more focused.

In the end I realized that Ironman is not just a race it’s a transformational journey for an individual.

Ironman Journey - The Dream!

In this series I’m planning to share my experiences of doing my first full Ironman at Langkawi, Malaysia in November 2016. The journey so far is no less than AWESOME!
With 50 days to go, I thought of sharing my experience to help fellow triathletes and wannabies when they attempt their Ironman.

It all starts with “The Dream”, the word Ironman was for me like everyone else was more of a comic character, eptiomized by Robert Downey Jr. in the Ironman series.
It all started when I signed up for my first half marathon and told my boss about it. He shared that he also runs marathons and is preparing for the full Ironman, and asked me to go and research about it. After going through the Wikipedia entry, I was already blown away, how can a human do that!!!
3.8 kms Swim, 180 kms Cycling and 42.2 kms(full marathon) that too in a sequence, with the cut-off and time limit of 17 hours! For me that’s the seed of my inspiration to attempt for Ironman.

My learning from this is that “Share” things, have conversations, you never know you might find your dream in one of them!

Another thing I learnt in this journey is that NEVER let your dream fade away, keep reminding yourself of your dream.

Lastly, if your is any less than “TRANSFORMATIONAL”, then find another one!

Cheers,
Ram

Cheapest barefoot running shoes - Decathalon New Feel shoes for than Rs.500

Running barefoot is always facinating to most of the runners, but it also scares lot of runners. One of the scariest things which stops people from running barefoot is getting hurt by the gravel, glass or pricking objects on the road. Initially I went through the pain of small gravels and at times the big ones hurting my feet's sole.

After running a few races barefoot I realized that it's not always a good idea to run barefoot if you don't know the terrain well, so it’s better to do a recce of the route if you are planning to run barefoot or check with organizers about the terrain.
I was running a 50 minute challenge and the course was bad having all thegravel(small and big) and glass particles. I have to stop a few times to takeout the gravel which got stuck in my feet. So I decided to have a minimalistshoe but the cheaper one.

Minimalistic shoes are expensive but I found one of the cheap and best option is Decathlon’s Newfeel walking shoe.

The best part of this shoe is it’s price, Rs.499(less than $9).

I started using it for the races which has bad terrain and lot of gravel and I’m very satisfied with it’s performance. To get the feel of barefoot I tookoff the insole, so that my feet can feel the terrain, and it work!

In last 3 years I’ve recommended and gifted so many pairs to my running buddies, that this shoe has become part of of lives.

Happy Running :)

Swimming goggle fitting guide

Recently I bought a swimming goggle online and while I just started using it, I’m facing lot of issues of leakage, so I thought of doing some research for videos on how to get / choose a swimming goggles that fit and I found this video very appropriate.


Happy Swimming :)

Triathlon Motivation : Ironminds video

My first half ironman distance race is on coming Sunday(10 Aug 2014), 4 days to go, and I found this motivational video on Youtube. Hope you will like it! One quote form the video "To WIN is to overcome others, VICTORY is to overcome YOURSELF!"

The Tour De France Explained in animation - exciting in deed!

Found this amazingly simple video which explains The Tour De France in animation!

My fastest 10K so far

Yesterday I ran my fastest 10K race in 48 minutes and 27 seconds barefoot! It’s also my first sub-50 10K, before this one I used to clock around 52-53 minutes but an improvement of 3/4 minutes is unbelievable to me as well. It was Pune Running’s LSOM(Las Sunday Of Month) run at Blue Ridge, Hinjewadi, Pune. The course was rolling hills and I thought I might do it in 52 coz of hills. We reached the venue at 6:15AM and did the registration on the spot. After a jog of 400meters we did the stretches and was ready to run.

In the meanwhile I went to the toilet twice, and was wondering even after running so many marathons and races I still get anxiety, huh! Anyways, we lined up at the start line and were waiting for the flag-off. After few minutes the race started and I realised that I was the second person leading.  I started fast just to get more room and beat the initial chaos. After a while I slowed a bit down to catch my breath and pace myself up for the rest of the course. After 1K my fellow runner Amitabh joined me and asked “Dude, you know that you ran the 1K in 3:47!”. 1 kilometer in 3 minutes and 47 seconds I never thought I can ran that fast and that too on an incline surface!! So finally I joined Amitabh and he was breathing a bit heavily and I told him to slow down to control the breathing. Afterwards we ran at a pretty good pace and most of the course was incline. At 4K I saw my watch and it was showing 20:47, so we were a bit over 5km/per min pace. There were few more hills and then we have to take a U-turn. I decided to sustain till the U-turn and pace up on the decline. Meanwhile I kept drinking and pouring water on my head and that really helped me to keep my core body temperature low.

After the U-turn I started pacing up but Amitabh was left behind and I thought he will catch up because he’s a fast runner. Unfortunately, he’s out of practice for a while and was not able to but I kept going. While coming back was waving, giving high-5s and cheering people and it was FUN! After 2K of decline the hills started again and I kept the momentum. Finally the last decline started and I increased my pace, at the 8.5K mark I was in 44minutes.

I kept going and in the last 200 meters I sprinted and stopped my watch and the time it was showing was 48:27! Wow, I’m more than happy and on top of the world to break my first sub-50 10K.

All set for TCS 10K on 18th May 2014 in Bangalore!

Takeaways from yesterday's run:

• Initial speeding up helps, but keep in mind your pace.
• Don’t go out of breath, if so slow down and regain your breath and hence momentum
• Embrace the terrain, use your practice to kill the hills and enjoy the down hills :)
• Keep hydrating and pouring water to maintain the core body temperature low
• Enjoy the event, give high-5s, cheer for people and pass on smiles

 

Happy Running :)