Returning to Structure: Blogger vs. Blogger @ Ironman Florida 2008

Paul Kindzia's got a post up about our friendly Ironman Florida rivalry. It's definitely on.

If I plan on beating JOE REGER on November 1 it's going to happen by putting 20 minutes into him on the bike. Somehow that guy comes out of the water about 2 minutes ahead of me but I need at least a 20 minute lead coming out of T2.

I'm the tall goofy looking Peter Reid who can run. Paul's the solid Norman Stadler who can bike. He's gonna be ahead out of T2. I'm gonna try to run him down. It'll be fantastic!

We're both looking at the bike because that's where the majority of the race happens. It's possible (actually even easy?) to take 20 minutes off the bike in an Ironman. The problem is that you then pay the price for that 20 minutes on the run. When Paul says:

Ironman Florida is going to be a race between two guys that are going to push each other to the limits.

he's right. We're both going to eke out as much as we can from the bike without ruining our run legs. It's an interesting challenge because it's not necessarily physical. It's about that mental line in the sand.

Lil' Stew has offered to help me with a workout plan for the remaining weeks before Florida. This means I'll be adding structure to my routine. While Paul's leaving structure.

Which is why I literally laughed out loud when I saw the title of Paul's post today (thanks Nat for pointing me in that direction.)

On the surface you may think we're both idiots (ten years of joereger.com has proven I'm certainly one.) I mean, what if Peter Reid and Norman Stadler both announced 8 weeks before Hawaii that they were changing their training plans? Insanity.

But I think it works for both of us. Paul's been working with Matt Russ all year and has built up his fitness substrates well. He's got strength, muscular endurance, speed, etc. But he hasn't been doing as much of the fun-inspiring freestyle stuff. It'll cap his season off well and give him the "feel" he needs to race at his limits. And I've been doing pretty much damn near anything for months so to add some rigor around my fitness and gain some of the fitness substrates should be good for me.

Either way, I'm sure that both of us will remain fairly true to what we've learned in the past. It's not like either of us is completely changing. Paul's shifting in the less structure direction. I'm shifting towards some structure. In the end Paul will probably still be more structured than I am.

I've got a lot of work to do. My strategy is to maintain the run fitness I've got and then gain some muscular endurance on the bike. I'll need to keep Paul within 9-13 minutes on the bike. His running has progressed a lot since last year and his numbers look better than mine in workouts. I don't think I can run him down if he's got 20 minutes on me coming out of T2. He'll probably be south of 3:45 on the marathon this year and I hurt a lot last year going 3:31ish. The trouble is that I don't get splits on the bike so I'll have to guess what Paul's doing.

I've got to get my swim shored up. Not sure what happened in Louisville but it was ugly painful. I'll be happy to come out anywhere near Paul this year. He's actually, you know, been working out to a schedule and everything.

Paul's been sick since his Canada race. I'm starting to get some respiratory congestion today... Heather's as sick as a dog.

So it's on. And it'll be fun. I want both of us to hit PRs this year. Whatever happens it's a fun rivalry and makes both of us faster. While I'd be glad to see most any other competitor get a flat on race day, I certainly don't want Paul to get one (or any other Atlanta athletes.) It's kind of like that. Rivalry but friends.