Exactly. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
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Training cut back over the last month healing up from a small injury, buying a house again (place I was living so no moving) and doing budgets for my job. Yes excuses but needed to get that stuff out of the way in order to relax a bit more.
Still planning to do more of a run/bike focus for rest of the year building some base and then sprinkle in some swimming starting mid q1.
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Reporting for duty @JoeX!
October was off-season and dedicated to planning the next season and identifying focus areas. My main event will be IM Copenhagen in August, supporting events will be Roth in July (relay, swimmer), a local half / state champs in June and possibly some MTB and trail running events earlier in the year.
Structured training for 22 has kicked off on Novemver 1st. I’ve hired the same coach with whom I’ve worked so well for the 70.3 distance. We’re currently trying to define reasonable goals for the race. My performance baseline is surprisingly good. Running has dropped off a cliff after a much needed break from intensity. But on the bike I’ve somehow maintained near peak FTP (ramp tested) of 4 w/kg. Not sure how that happened, but I changed a few things compared to previous years: More targeted maintenance workouts courtesy of TrainNow, improves consistency and raised voume in the pool and a drop in running volume. Probably all three of those contributed in some fomr or another.
Another massive development is my swim. I’ve improved enough and have now reached the point where I really enjoy swimming. I am not finding excuses anymore to not go the pool, but to go to the pool. I am still struggling to fit in more than 3 swims per week, but am appraching 8000m per week which feels pretty great.
Focus for November will remain on swim volume, slowly rebuilding running volume and maintaining bike power. I hope the weather holds up for a little longer to allow for a few MTB rides before winter hits. I’ve also began reading more on nutrition. Fueling earlier and more on the trainer and on longer runs has opened my eyes to how much training and racing can improve with better nutrition. I’ve now dug into papers and ordered a few books. I hope to better understand how it all works and see how I can improve my fueling strategy.
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Dumb ideas are the most fun, welcome to Ironman training 
Get in the pool as soon as you can and train. You’ll need to build up the run slowly. As a weaker runner I had some success with run/walk on race day.
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Only Kona eh? Tough luck. 
Great news on the swim, definitely easier to train when you are regular 3/wk and enjoying it 
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Any reasonably fit person can complete an IM….just depends on how long it will take you. You have the training background to understand how the components fit together, so I have zero doubt you’ll finish.
My favorite book ever……and so much better than the movie (which is fantastic on its own)
Hah…somewhat tangential to this. My wife wants to get a tattoo on her arm (it is a MS thing for her) and asked me to get one with her. So even though I have not done an IM in 5 years and 4 years since my last 70.3, I figured I’d get the obligatory m-dot tat. But then I thought “kinda lame to get one 5 years after the race”……so instead, I’m gonna get an old-school comic of Iron Man’s head on my calf….probably this one. Then when people ask, I’ll just say it is my Ironman tattoo. 
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My wife asked me when i was going to make a triathlon tattoo…
And I have been thinking about it…
so something cool would be maybe have something related to the sport but not necessarily the normal 
than most people do…
I was thinking maybe some waves to symbolize the water like this…
Maybe a bike sproket of chain for cycling…
and maybe a classic running shoe silhouette for running
(I dont like this… but for ilustration)
Anyways…
waiting for my next trip to PR to talk to my tattoo guy and come up with a cool design to integrate all the ideas!
Copy at will!
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Very NICE! I toyed with some designs putting a variation of the image above inside the “M”…actually liked the concept a lot, but the size required to get the detail I needed was larger than I wanted to go.
Even had a design with the arc reactor for the “dot” and the comic art inside the “M”…but that was just too busy.
So just going with the head from the above old-school art…will probably be about 2" high or so.
I saw a guy once who had a B&W version of Ironman inside the M-dot…and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it just looked War Machine and not Iron Man. Or maybe he was just a huge WM fan? 
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I have a few that I got over the past couple of years. The heart on the back of my wrist is my finger print and the other side is my daughters. The track wing went over an old one my buddy did free hand. Toyed with M dot but nah.
He is very talented and in Miami so when going there for work I stop by which is who did all 3. These are easy for him compared to others he has done.
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Nice…The bike chain/dna looks cool!
I have 6 in total (2 left upper arm/shoulder, 1 chest, 2 right leg, 1 left leg).
I want a sport related one, but I am still undecided. Like I said I want something that integrates the 3 sports and maybe another that show my one true love: running
Like you, I have a guy and all but one of them has been made by him. I trust his skills and art (he was an art major before becoming a tattoo artist). Waiting for this COVID thing to go away so I can visit my parent and get some new ink done!
Yeah. Some of the stuff he does for people blows my mind. That chain design was a pic we saw online or something different and he drew it up to be like that. As you know to get any sort if detail which is what you want it needs to be a relatively decent size.
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I really don’t have a burning desire to get a tattoo, but like I said, it is more to support my wife when she goes in…so I’m trying to have some fun with it, I guess.
Having read the old Iron Man comics when I was a kid, I thought doing the old comic art was kinda cool vs. the newer MCU version of him.
Oh yeah…that ws another idea I looked into…doing the M-Dot but making it look like the old comic book Iron Man logo with the rivets, etc. But it was too subtle and people probably wouldn’t have gotten it.
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The tattoo is for you and no one else. Who cares if they get it and when/if you do get what you want. Most people if they like it will ask you about the story. Kudos to you supporting your wife.
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Do a tattoo YOU will get…
You are the one who has to live with it!
You are the one who will see it every day…
who cares if other “get it” YOU are the only one to have to like it
If you do decide to get one, there is no turning back. Next thing you know you will end up with your legs covered in ink!
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Everyone keeps telling me that!!
…but I am pretty sure I’ll be a “one and done”.
I said that 6 tattoos ago…
Now have 4 ideas that want to put into ink next! 
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8000m feels like loads to me (time normally allows me to hit 2500 in a single session, max).
How do you structure your three swims out of interest?
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The ankle wing is exactly what I had in mind!