David, you are an IRONMAN!

After just 180 days of hard work, trainings & determination, no words can describe the feeling of crossing that finishline!

It shows anything is possible! This famous slogan to symbolize the Iron Man is how I lived day by day for the past 6 months. It was possible! As is anything that you really believe in!!

Was it amazing? Was it a lifetime experience? Did it change your life? IT DID! I truly found happiness in realizing this dream, the support from loved ones & family who joined last minute was incredible to share!

Some might wonder, what is your next challenge? It’s simple: remind myself what this was all about, and make time for friends again!

Thank you all again! YOU ARE INCREDIBLE!

I truly hope you find your happiness… just believe!

Timings:
Swim (3,8km): 1:14:42 (no wetsuits allowed)
Bike (180km): 6:00:26
Run (42,2km): 4:25:49 (started with a severe bad knee, but everyone has something  )
Overall: 11:52:52

Some interesting stats (e.g. 20% does not finish): http://realendurance.com/event.php?a=T5928

An amazing personal movie to inspire you!

My dear readers,

During the first months of training, I had the honor to work with Dries Van Havermaet and his crew to create a movie about this challenge.

I hope you like it!

http://vimeo.com/107265267

It's all about happiness!!

Final gear preperations! Still in draft phase, but you'll get the idea :)

Just smile & be happy!

Anti-Gravity Treadmill - Toy or Workout Beast?

May 17, 2014

It's been a while! Time for an special topic to keep things interesting :)

Some weeks ago, I had some small injuries making it very difficult to keep running at a normal pace. I could not think about skipping one training session!

It seemed I was lucky, In my coaching centre (185.be) they received for several weeks a machine called "Anti-Gravity Treadmill". It looks like a normal threadmill with some kind of cage built around it.

How it works?
- You stand on the treadmill that will calibrate itself
- The cage fills itself with air
- You can set your relative weight.

Does it work?
I believe it does. Since you can keep on training with minimal impact on your joints and muscles. And it's still a very good cardio!

Mental Coaching - Total Coaching & Action Typing

Did you know that your personality type is related to your body posture, how muscles are developed and sport (training & racing) technique?

I had my first mental coaching session last week, and did not know at all what to expect. At first you think 'do I really need mental coaching, what can I learn about myself that I don't know yet?'. Previously, I had many trainings including one on personality typing (MBTI) where you have a very good idea about your strenghts and how you behave in different situations.

I was very suprised to learn that MBTI profiles can be mapped to 'Action Typing' which can learn you how you react & behave during trainings and races.... and how you can take advantage of your strenghts to compensate for your 'weaknesses' (that is, the personality dimensions you are not used to control or prefer the most).

My MBTI type is +- ENTP (Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving). To demonstrate what this means some examples:
- I love to fantasise, create 'ideas' and brainstorm, it's hard to actually finish & implement things (I prefer to delegate this to others).
- I'm good at defining strategies & logical abstract thinking
- I have attention for everything around me, a 'large' view on the 'outside' world.

What is the trick to efficient training & racing? Use your strenghts to become extremly focussed. To become focussed, as ENTP try to aim to be 'IP' and not let your dominant 'EP' take over all the time. Some examples:
- Visualise how you will 'be' and 'feel' at the starting line or during a hard training.
- Fantasise what you will do in case of a breakdown (e.g. flat tire).
- Be aware of your body, and listen to it. Become aware of your breathing and heart rate.

Think of it! How powerfull this can be!

Many of the top athletes are very aware of these principles.

More info, find the web: TotalCoaching - Begeleiden met Action Type

(Me @ Blaarmeersen, Gent) It's OK to be an introvert from time to time! (C) Dries Van Havermaet

Week 4 & Month 1 - Summary

Almost one month done! 5 more to go!

Summary
Distance on bike: 155,5 km (1 day powercranks)
Distance running: 21 km
Distance swimming: 2 km
Stability workouts: 2 (takes 2-3 hours on averange)
Total heartbeats bike & swim: 80878 beats
Averange rest heartbeat (waking up): 54 beats / minute
Days remaining: 139

Compared to Week 1, improvement in 3 weeks:
Distance bike: +55%
Distance running: +84%
Distance swimming: /
Heartbeat bike & swim: +94%
Rest heartbeat: ==

Lessons Learned
Always clean & rinse your water bottles... oops
Running in the fields at sunset is aweome! :)

Week 3 - Summary

Have you ever seen someone in a swimming pool trying real hard to move forward with just his legs... but doesn't move? Well, for sure it was me! So... this was the first week with swimming technique training. Am I moving? Nope, still not...

Summary
Distance on bike: 125 km (1 day powercranks)
Distance running: 18,2 km
Distance swimming: 2 km
Stability workouts: 2 (takes 2-3 hours on averange)
Total heartbeats: 67861 beats
Averange rest heartbeat (waking up): 53 beats / minute
Days remaining: 146

Flat tires: 1

Lessons Learned
I'm not a fish... but I can repair a flat tire!
First time powercranks, this is gonna take time :)

How does a powercrank look like? Imagine 2 pedals which drive the wheel independently. This allows for optimal power generation during the full leg cycle! (good to know: often hamstrings are underdeveloped which makes you lose a lot of potential)

Week 2 - Summary

It was an exciting week! First real bike workouts on the road, of course this makes your trips a bit more dynamic :)

Summary
Distance on bike: 130 km
Distance running: 14,8 km
Distance swimming: 2 km
Stability workouts: 2
Total heartbeats: 56495 beats
Averange rest heartbeat (waking up): 52 beats / minute
Days remaining: 153

Lessons Learned
Try to plan workouts on the same time every week, it can make things easier :)
Plan an intermediate goal. Find a 1/2 triatlon around july. Any suggestions?

Week 1 (Official shedule) - Summary

From 14/04/2014, the official training plan execution was started! YES!

The strategy is to build-up the duration quantity for several weeks with after that several quality weeks with a very specific focus.

Workouts run: 2x

Workouts swim: 2x

Workouts cycling: 3x

Workouts power & stability: 3x

It all went pretty ok... discovered the joy of music while running and after some intense training the 'high' effect. That can keep you going! :)

Summary

The stats are obviously still very low, I'm very curious how they will increase each week! Can someone try to make a guess what these will read in 10 weeks? :)

Distance on bike: 100 km

Distance running: 11,4 km

Distance swimming: 0 km

Stability workouts: 0

Total heartbeats: 41670 beats

Averange rest heartbeat (waking up): 52 beats / minute

Days remaining: 160

Lessons Learned
Believe in yourself, cause others might not...
Try to keep it healthy, you don't want to be a cripple after 27/09/2014 :)

Testday! Lactate + Kine stability + Bike fitting

Today was an important day. After 4 hours of testing & fitting we can almost really start with an extensive program! (officially next week).

The lactate test reveiled something interesting; since the last test in the hospital 1 year ago (more extensive, which included an oxygen mask, pretty crazy stuff) things have improved? Hmm... so doing nothing seems to help? Better to be on the safe side on work on those new lower limits.

And yep... max heartrate is still well above 210. This time 213, previous time 217. The 'norm' would be 220 - your age = 193. So no, I'm officially not 'normal' :)

The kinesist was pretty positive. A lot (too much?) of power in the quadriceps, really not enough in the hamstrings so there is some work todo to get some more balance in joints such the knees (what I fear most for, weak knees might kill this dream).

Bike fitting as last reveiled the bike was not really fitting to give maximum power, nowadays with 3D technology (and a lot of sensors, about 8 each side) and such you can precise your saddle, steer, etc fitting to the mm. Actually gives you a very comfortable feeling knowing you have now the optimal position. The saddle was moved 2cm to the front, pretty incredible how much more power and comfort that gives you!

So what's next? Just have some fun this week the coach said with a big smile... cause things will change :)

Bike training 3 - Keep the cadens!

Finally managed to get the cadens sensor working!

Decided to keep on doing some interval training, and set a new milestone to 30km+

In the beginning the knees did not feel optimal, so seems I'll need to focus a bit on strengthening those with squad training... hope this won't stop me! (same feeling yesterday with running 5km).

However I do feel that working on a nice cadens can prevent some injuries, thank you Matthias Verstraete for the advice!

Below an impression of the trends, not really stable yet :)

Summary
Distance: 34,5 KM
Cadence AVG: 83 RPM
Cadence MAX: 107 RPM
Speed AVG:  29,31 km/h
Speed MAX: 45,1 km/h
Power AVG: 130 Watt
Power MAX: 340 Watt

Bike training 1 - indoor

Experimented today indoor (was already pretty late) with some bike training on an TACX training system (upgraded i-flow with tacx 4.10 advanced software). Did not manage to get further as 20km... well, its a start :)

Pretty cool what you can analyze & observe nowadays, it even comes with integrated virtual reality!(yep, you can do the tour of flanders indoor whenever you would like)

Only have some issues with the POLAR HRM & Cadence sensor, hope to get that sorted out soon!

Next week thursday will be the big test & analysis day (performance, kine & bike fitting), curious what will come out.

Summary
Distance: 20km
Cadence AVG: /
Cadence MAX: /
Speed AVG:  26,74 km/h
Speed MAX: 45.1 km/h
Power AVG: 134 Watt
Power MAX: 466 Watt

180 days - the blog

Welcome!

This blog is created to share my personal experience on what it takes to become an Iron Man... in only 180 days... and without any relevant experience. Yep, it's crazy...

Over the years, I have had an amazing respect for the 'real' athletes that push their limits and make the impossible possible. Such an inspiration is Marc Herremans. For this reason, I believe his training center 185.be is the best fit to help me achieve my goal. Let's be honest, this is not something you can do all yourself in 180 days.

I realize it will be very tough: I never rode more as 50km on a race bike, was not able to swim any crawl since 2 years ago and never ran more as 20km.

During the week I work as a consultant at Delaware Consulting, a challenging & amazingly interesting job. To make efficient training possible, I am very grateful they allowed me to work a bit less to focus on what for me is currently very important in life.

I will need all your support, coaching, encouragement & love to make this happen! Let's do this!

Target set: Mallorca 27/09/2014. GO!!