And so begins the "official" training...

Today was "officially" day 1 of an 8-month program to prep for Ironman Cozumel. 

I use the "parenthesis" for a couple reasons:

1) I've essentially been training non-stop for about 3 years now.  I did IM Coeur d'Alene in 2009, then spent most of 2010 working on my running, culminating in the California International Marathon in December.  I took it a bit easy the last couple months, but I'm not exactly starting from scratch.

2) I have an 8-month program that I'll follow, but certainly this far out I'll follow it somewhat loosely.

Which brings me to the topic of today's post: Training Plans and Coaching

As I began thinking about this Ironman, I was faced with a dliemma about coaching.  When I did CDA I hired a coach (Dusty Roady) from Whole Athlete in San Anselmo, CA, and it was an amazing experience.  I had done a lot of training in the past, but had never prepped for a 12+ hour race.  Dusty and I worked out a program that worked with my schedule.  She gave me 6 - 10 workouts a week, covering all 3 disciplines as well as strength work and cross training.  We exchanged emails frequently and met when I felt like we needed to chat.  I have a ton of respect for certified coaches, especially those that are accomplished racers as well.  Just having someone to come up with all those workouts and schedule them out was invaluable!

It was also pretty expensive.  So when I began prepping for this Ironman, I wasn't sure I wanted to pay for coaching again (and neither was my wife).  Plus I'm still trying to convince her that I "need" a new tri bike!  I still had all my workouts from my previous training.  I had a decent feeling for what I needed to do more and less of this time around.  I began investigating my options. 

I ended up downloading an Ironman training program from Triathlon Dominator, which focuses on training efficiently in a reasonable number of hours per week.  (Definitely attractive to "The Recreational Ironman"!)

I imported the plan into Training Peaks.  I haven't completely analyzed it yet, but it looks pretty good.  I'll edit as I see fit (which is a whole other topic for a separate post!).  I'll let you know how it's going as I get deeper into the plan.

But now I need to go to sleep.