Under Pressure

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrEN-YKLBM]

Ever since doing so well at this year’s Duke 1/2 race, I’m feeling alot of pressure and performance anxiety about B2B.   Before Duke, I was approaching B2B with a “lets just finish an Ironman and see how it goes” attitude.   Now I keep thinking “I have to go for Locker #1“.  But that means a 12 hour Ironman race.  Am I capable of a 12 hour Ironman?  That’s a pretty high bar to set for myself.

It took me 4 years to beat the Duke 1/2.  Will it take me that long to conquer the Iron distance too?   Will I even want to do another Ironman again after B2B?

I keep remembering how devastated I was after Duke 2007, when I fell far short of my race goal.    The reason I fell short was that I didn’t yet have the endurance base or mental toughness to do a sub 6 hour half iron.  As such, my expectations for that race were too high.  It took another two years to make those gains.  Will my endurance base and the mental toughness I gained this year transfer to the Iron Distance?  I don’t know.

And how do I pace an Ironman anyway?   How do I set goals?  If I just ‘go easy’ the whole way, I won’t get a 12 hour race.   But I don’t want to blow up either and risk DNF’ing or walking a marathon.   Walking a marathon sounds horribly frustrating.

I looked at a couple of triathlon calculators to predict my race time. 

• Triathloncalculator.com lets you input your age, weight, years of racing, training volume, and pace data. It predicted a 13:30 finish time for me.   Seems doable.  But it predicted a bike pace of 16 mph (and I know I can do way better than that even going easy) and a run pace of 9min/mile (and that might be a stretch!).  So, hmmmm?
• Triathlon-calculator.com predicts race time based on performance in another race.  I input my recent Duke 1/2 time and it gave me 11:32 for an Iron Distance.   That seems a bit unrealistic.   I dunno…

I’ve been studying Endurance Nation’s Four Keys to Ironman Execution.   Their strategy makes alot of sense.   I think I will follow their advice about staying inside my own “box” and remembering “the line” which starts mile 18 of the run.  I think if I do that, I will have a good race.    And I will try to have fun and cross the finish line with a smile on my face.  I especially like what they say about the bike split…I’m going to think of this quote every time I am tempted to push too hard on the bike.

Think you made the mistake of riding too easy? You now have 26 miles to fix that mistake. Make the mistake of riding too hard? That mistake now has 26 miles to express itself, to the tune of X miles at 17-18′ walking pace vs X miles at 8-10′ running pace. Do the math. How is that bike split going to look as you are walking/shuffling the last 10 miles of the run?

My own best case scenario prediction:  1:01 for the swim (fast due to being with a current); 6:13 bike (18mph); 4:35 run (10:30min/mile) = 11:49 + transitions.   Probably a little over 12 hours.   But no matter what, I will not lose focus and slow down if I get to a point in the race where I see that goal slip away.  I will stay strong and positive and keep doing my best!