Three Lessons I Learned from Training for a Half Ironman
I’ve found the best life experiences are the ones that prepare you for future struggles. Training for a half Ironman did not disappoint in that regard.
When I crossed the finish line yesterday at the Connecticut Half Ironman, I had two strong feelings: accomplishment and relief.
The past five months have been a grind. I’m thrilled this race is over and I can go back to being a normal human.
Spending four hours on Saturday biking and running is no picnic.
Follow that up with three hours on Sunday swimming and running, and it makes for a weekend from hell.
Multiply that by the last five or six weekends, and it’s easy to understand why I’m happy the race is over.
I’m sure this is no revelation to you. You’re probably thinking I’m crazy for wanting to compete in a half Ironman. You probably have no sympathy for my painful weekends –especially since they were self-inflicted.
I don’t blame you. Hell, I actually agree with you.
Since we’re all on the same page, I’ll stop crying you a river.
I’ll stop humble bragging about how tough my training was.
I’ll take this opportunity to share with you a few of the lessons I learned from my experience of training for a half Ironman.
These lessons aren’t specific to triathlon training. They are lessons you can apply to anything you do. But they became abundantly clear to me after spending six days a week for five months working toward a goal (last humble brag, I promise).
Here they are – I hope they are as useful to you as they have been to me.
Lesson 1 - "overnight success" comes from consistent execution
Sometime in September 2018, I got in a lap pool for the first serious swim workout of my life.
At the time, I was going to physical therapy for what turned out to be a torn labrum, and I wasn’t allowed to run. I decided to give swimming a try.
To give you an idea how much of a novice I was, picture this:
I showed up to the pool in a pair of board shorts. I didn’t have goggles or a swim cap – I didn’t know any better.
I hopped in the water next to a guy who had just finished a lap. As he came up, I asked if he minded sharing the lane with me.
“I’m done,” he responded. “You can have it. By the way, you should have a swim cap on. It’s disgusting when people don’t wear swim caps.”
Alright, I thought. Please excuse me while I just go fuck myself.
He got out of the pool, and I began the first of thousands of laps I would swim in the next nine months.
One workout at a time
That first day, I swam 20 lengths – one length at a time.
My form was non-existent. I didn’t know how to breath between strokes. And I had the stamina of a horse on his way to the glue factory.
It was pitiful. It was discouraging.
But I was determined.
I started watching YouTube videos and talking to all the swimmers I knew. I talked to people in the pool. I talked to people at work. I talked to my physical therapist – a former college swimmer.
A few weeks later, I went to the pool with my girlfriend. By this time, I could swim two or three lengths without a break, but it wasn’t pretty. She swam circles around me.
Sometime in December, I decided I wanted to compete in a half Ironman. I knew swimming would be my weak point, but I had a couple months under my belt. I was pretty sure I could figure it out.
I started my official training program in January 2019. The program had nine or ten workouts each week, spread over six days. Three of the weekly workouts were swims.
I struggled through all my workouts, never missing one unless it was planned (I took a couple vacations over the course of the training).
Slowly but surely, I was improving in the pool. Finally, in March 2019, my girlfriend joined me for another pool workout.
She was blown away with my progress.
In October, I could swim about one length for every two she swam. In March, I could swim about two for every one she swam.
To an outside observer, it looked like an overnight success. To me, I knew it was the result of hours of practice – the result of never missing a workout.
The typical overnight success
We’re used to observing this from the other side.
We see the new artist who seems to take over the charts out of nowhere. Or the young golfer who wins his first major. We see these victories as an “overnight success.”
The truth is, there is no such thing as an overnight success. Accomplishing great feats comes from hours, days, weeks, and years of consistent practice and tiny improvements.
Success comes from persistence in the face of discouragement.
We see these accomplishments as overnight success because we weren’t present for the years of struggle before the breakthrough. But make no mistake, that struggle was real.
The next time you feel like you’re making no progress, think of me floundering around in the pool.
The next time you feel discouraged and want to quit, remember this: I went from swimming 25 yards at a time to swimming 1.2 miles in 36 minutes without stopping.
It took me less than nine months of showing up and putting in the reps. You can do it – keep taking your cuts.
Lesson 2 - achieving big goals is hard without the right relationships
Any major undertaking will come with challenges and setbacks. If you don’t have a base of solid relationships, those challenges and setbacks are much harder to overcome.
Here are just a few examples of the support I received from my relationships:
Coworkers and friends
A work friend and fellow triathlete let me borrow his wet-suit, saving me at least $150. In my ignorance, I was planning to race without one. He told me that would be a mistake, and his advice saved my ass on the swim.
Another work friend was basically an Ironman expert. His dad had competed in several. He talked strategy with me, and gave me good ideas for bike training routes.
I made friends with one of the lifeguards at my pool, and he snuck me into a different pool when my gym was closed. This was a huge help in making sure I completed my swims toward the end of training.
I had four or five friends and co-workers who would regularly ask me about my training.
“How’s it going?”
“What’s your workout today?”
“What does atypical week look like for you?”
These questions were great for two reasons:
I could tell the people asking them were genuinely interested, which made me feel good.
I came to expect the questions, which held me accountable for every workout. I didn’t want to have to tell anybody that I skipped a training session.
Family
My dad listened patiently as I told him about every single workout. We talk most days while I’m on my way to work, which is shortly after I finish my morning sessions. It was nice to have somebody who would listen while I recapped my workouts – every single day.
My brother agreed to paddle alongside me in a kayak so I could practice an open water swim. We ended up calling this one off because the water was 46 degrees, but he was willing to freeze his ass off in a kayak to help me out.
It’s pretty clear from these examples I had a great network of people helping and supporting me. But the most important support came from my closest relationship– my girlfriend.
She put up with 5 months of me spending weekends in the gym.
She sat in the car by bike paths while I finished my rides.
She met me in the middle of my long runs and ran with me for a few miles. Her company and conversation helped get me through some of the tougher ones.
Most importantly, she was my constant encouragement.
When I sent her a text planning one of my weekend workouts, she responded with four simple words, “I admire your dedication.”
Those were the most touching and meaningful words I ever remember hearing.
My girlfriend is a med student.
She spent months driving two hours each way to a job that would boost her resume just to get into med school.
She recently studied 10 hours per day for six weeks straight to pass her boards.
Shortly before I wrote this, she worked a 26 hour shift on her surgery rotation.
She is the most dedicated person I know. There’s not even a close second.
For her to tell me she admired my dedication was the ultimate compliment.
Those four words are representative of the support she provided me in this training and in everything I do. Without that support, I don’t succeed.
Without the support of your network, you don’t succeed either.
You may find success on your own, but if you want to realize your full potential, start building your network now.
I am blessed with an extremely supportive family. If you’re not, you need to build your network from scratch. Make the right friends, join the right clubs, associate with the right co-workers. Build your all-star team. Your future success depends on it.
Lesson 3 - achieving big goals is hard without a process
Without a process, running a half Ironman is a dream, not a goal.
As James Clear says, winners and losers have the same goals. The difference maker is that winners use processes to reach their goals.
I set up and followed three major processes to get me through this training. They revolved around the workouts, sleep, and food.
Workouts
Every Sunday night, I would hand write out my training for the coming week. I broke it down by day, morning or evening, and exactly what I had to do for the workout. This is what it looked like:
The Joe Wells patented workout tracker
This was a simple process, but it removed the need to think during the week. When I went to bed, I knew what workout I was doing in the morning.
When I left for work, I knew what workout I was doing in the evening.
The process removed most of the potential for skipping sessions.
As I mentioned above, consistent execution is crucial for achieving big goals. This process helped me execute consistently.
Sleep
This part was super simple.
If I needed to wake up at 5am for a workout, I needed to be in bed and asleep by 9pm.
Eight hours. Every night. That was the goal.
I hit the goal about half the time. When I missed, it usually wasn’t by much. But simply being aware of when I had to be asleep every night contributed to most of my decisions.
Happy hour tonight? Not a chance.
Quick load of laundry? It’ll have to wait ‘til the weekend.
Phone call from a friend at 8:30pm? Don’t have time for that one.
The only process here was get your ass in bed and get eight hours of sleep. But that’s all it took. One simple process that contributed to the overall goal of running a half Ironman.
Nutrition
I’m going to call this a nutrition process, but that’s laughable if you know the amount of cookies and pizza I ate.
Because I burned so many calories from the training, I needed to make sure I was eating enough to keep me energized and able to go hard in the gym.
This required planning, but I worked out a solid process:
On Sunday, I would make a list of everything I needed for the week, including every meal and snack.
Then I would go grocery shopping and stock the fridge with everything from my list.
Finally, I would spend time (usually several hours) prepping meals, cutting fruits and vegetables, and packaging things so they were grab and go ready.
This process took time, but it ensured I had both enough to eat and relatively healthy foods.
It also saved me a small fortune. I could’ve spent half my paycheck eating out every day with all the calories I was crushing. But that would be hypocritical considering how much I talk about wise money management.
Don’t be mistaken, I did have my share of pizza dinners and the occasional Chipotle lunch. But having a process for nutrition was critical for being able to complete my training program.
The race is over, my body is beat up, and I’m probably lying in bed as you read this.
But I accomplished a huge goal.
And in the process, I learned some lessons that will serve me through the rest of my life.
