A Journey of 140.6 miles ....

officially begins with a single step, or in my case a single swim workout, on May 6, 2013. 

When the Iron Year began, I calendared Monday, May 6 2013 as the Day One of training for the actual Ironman Race.  That's because it is 26 weeks out and not only is that symbolically important as a half of a year, or six months, but also it was the duration of the training plan I had planned to use, Gail Bernhard's "26 weeks to an Ironman" in her book Training Plans for Multisport Athletes. 

As the event approaches, I have come across other plans of 30 weeks and 24 weeks.  I may use elements of all three, so 26 weeks is arbitrary.  Another couple of  reasons it is kind of arbitrary are 1) that I have been training up to this point, so it's not like I am actually "starting" to train as such, just more like designating a day to be day one, and 2) these early weeks of all three plans are base building, relatively low intensity work to build the aerobic system, and finally 3) I actually have a race on May 19, Ironman Florida 70.3.  That Monday, May 20, 2013, I will be 24 weeks out with no major races (except one Olympic) between then and November. 

But me being who I am, I need to announce an official "Day One" of Ironman training, and I like the symmetry of a half year, so - there it is - Ironman training is officially underway (actually week one is complete, this is the first day of Week 2).  The base building of weeks 2 and 3 will dovetail nicely with "tapering" for IM 70.3 Florida this week, and "recovering" from it next week. 

NOTHING TO IT BUT TO DO IT!