Super Bowl Sunday

After a relatively slow first day start to my Ironman training, I vowed to "kick it into gear" today. I kinda did.

It's Super Bowl Sunday and the home state Colts are playing…it was important to get the training out of the way so the family could watch the game together.

I decided I'd try to bike 45 minutes and then run for 5 miles. Because I had a recent knee surgery, I had been taking it easy and either running or doing some easy spinning. Today is the first time I put both together, one right after the other. Like yesterday, I received a stark reminder about how difficult it was going to be to attain this goal.

It took a while to get comfortable on the bike and minutes felt like hours as I peddled and watched the Super Bowl hype build. Eventually, my 45 minutes of biking were up. I was relieved and eager to get to the running aspect of the workout.

Not so fast.

The transition from bike to run was a shock to my body. My stride was off – I felt out of alignment. My knee started to ache. I limped on the treadmill. I started to worry that maybe I couldn't finish the five miles. I began to think that maybe I had taken on too much with the Ironman dream.

But I hung on and eventually, the ache went away and my stride became comfortable. It was never easy and I can't comprehend and don't want to even think about how I'll do a full Ironman.

Day two of my Ironman training is complete and I'll have to be satisfied with that.