Earlier this week, Ironman announced a 70.3 will be held at the iconic Lake Placid Ironman venue. The 70.3 would route the athletes through one lap of each of the full's 2 lap per discipline's course, a true Half. I've never raced Placid but have been there for a few structured and unstructured training camps. Sign ups for the half are this September with the race a year later in September 2017. This announcement intrigued me.
I realized that, even at one lap, this course is the wrong course for me and even more so, I am so out of shape that there would be no hope for my success in 2017. Many of the triathletes in the Long Island area are excited for this race. I'm guessing that many would be looking for training groups and if I could latch onto a group, even if I didn't succeed at training for LP70.3, I would improve to the point where maybe a 2018 HIM would be a realistic goal. That may of may not be Placid but I called my former coach for his view.
He agreed. "If you want to climb a hill, don't start with Everest." I asked how would I know if I was ready to begin training. We talked a bit and agreed upon a training structure of "sweat once a day."
This means every day I should either bike easily for an hour, walk easily for >20 minutes, or swim >30 minutes. He asked to post the workouts and he would respond with occasional snide comments.
We'll checkpoint in a month or so.