Truths I've discovered while training for Ironman.

Training for an Ironman is not a part time endeavor. It becomes your second full time job. For the 9+ months you train, Ironman will be the guiding force in your life. You will spend up to 23 hours a week training. You’ll spend even more hours thinking, planning, dreaming, reading, and ‘Googling’ everything and anything Ironman. It will consume you.


Life revolves around training, sleeping, and eating. Your social life becomes non-existent. To spend a Friday or Saturday night out would pay for itself the next morning on your 5 hour brick workout. Friends will stop asking you to do things, as they know what your answer will be. You make the kind gesture of inviting them to join you the next morning for a 5am swim; they laugh.


Family and friends who are not triathletes, will think you’re nuts. They will still love you and support you. It is thanks to their support that you continue on. You will become emotional as you often wish you could share this life changing experience with those you have loved and lost.


If you’re lucky, you go about this journey with a team of others who are going through the exact same experiences as you. They will become your social circle and your additional support system. They are just as crazy as you are.


Your conversations revolve around racing, results, training, goals, nutrition tactics, if you use Hammer, CarboPro, or both, where you will do your next long ride, your next long run and with whom.


Out in the normal world you won’t have many conversations that don’t include the word “Ironman” at some point. The same goes for personal emails. You will run spell check and realize exactly how many times you had typed the word “Ironman”, as even Microsoft Outlook and Word have absolutely no idea what it is.


You’ll have a better farmer’s tan than, well… a farmer. You will avoid beaches as the glaring whiteness of your upper thighs (the area the bike shorts cover) would scare away the kids.


Training will become a religious experience. You go to bed at night anxious for the next day and what will be on your training schedule. You live for your daily workouts. You record every minute detail in your training log and look back on it regularly to see how far you have come. You will beam with pride when your training weeks break 20 hours.


You originally wondered how a person could enjoy swimming 100’s of laps in a 25 yard pool and spending 7+hours on a bike, and then soon after, you understand. You will revel in completing your first 2.5 mile swim and your first century ride followed by a long run. You’ll look back at the time you thought it’d be impossible, and smile as you have just proven that old self wrong.


You will be intrigued by all of the triathlon gear out there and finding out about all the latest and greatest that can make you faster. You consider taking out a loan, as bike envy has consumed you, so you can buy the latest speed concept Tri bike with electronic shifting. You think it’s not all that ridiculous to spend $8000 on a bike as you’ll “use it all the time”.


You will not have been to a mall in ages to go clothes shopping, but you have been to the running store and Tri store many times and are anxious to go back, hoping there is something you might have missed last time you were there that you just have to have.


It’s hard to find the time (or energy) to make it to the grocery store. You are thankful you have a Super Target close so you can buy groceries and toiletries all in one trip. You consider using the grocery delivery service as you could order your groceries online during the day and simply have them waiting for you when you get home.


You consider hiring a personal chef. You will be constantly hungry and you will eat anything and everything in your way. Including the chef, so you are glad you second guessed yourself and didn’t hire one.


If you are not working, training, eating, or sleeping, you will be lazy. After an 8 hour training day, your couch has never felt so good. Depending on the training weekend you had, you will feel a sinking feeling when you walk into your building and discover they are repairing the escalator, meaning you’ll have to walk up a floor. OMG what if the elevators were being repaired too? That's when you'd turn around and leave to go work from home.


Your dishwasher will be ¾ full of water bottles. You will find that leaving even an ounce of Hammer Sustained Energy in a water bottle then forgetting about it for a few days will result in throwing that water bottle immediately away, as you will wonder what animal died in there. It will be no big deal because your cupboard is full of 30 others.


You will arrive at work late, take long lunch breaks, and leave early. You get your hours in whenever and wherever you can. You pray that your boss is forgiving. You fight the urge to fall asleep at your desk and in meetings.


You body composition will change. You will be leaner, more muscular, and feel the most fit you've ever felt. You walk with an air of confidence and a spring in your step. You will be eating more than you ever ate before, but your body will lose inches and your clothes will fit looser.


Your thoughts will gush with confidence, determination, and focus.


You will go through phases of being an emotional wreck. You’ll feel more highs and lows in one day than you’d usually feel in a month; excitement, frustration, hope, anger, despair, doubt, awe, sadness, and inspiration. You will constantly question the meaning of your life and why you are doing an Ironman. You will come up with different answers every time.


You will dream of qualifying for Kona, even though you know the only chance you’d have to getting in is by the lottery. You will smile and cry with elation as you picture yourself crossing the finish line that day and cringe in fear at the thought of not finishing.

You will be HAPPY and more fulfilled than you have ever been in your life.