Ryan Nakabayashi

I always used to make fun of people training for the Ironman who would count backwards from the number of hours in a week to figure out training times. “That’s crazy, I’ll never be one of those people.”

I’ve become one of those people.

It turns out there are 168 hours in a week – and for the next few months I’m going to need all of them. For me, without a concrete plan, I completely fall apart. “I don’t know, I think the plan is to run tonight… maybe” will eventually become “nah, I can watch 2 hours of West Wing tonight, and run tomorrow – or the next day”. And then I’m in a bad place.

With the full marathon quickly approaching (one month?? when did that happen?!) and the Half Ironman shortly afterward – it’s time to get serious about training. To that end I’ve come up with a schedule that let’s me get enough exercise time in.

But, it’s funny, but in order to have time to run at night, I have to leave work right at 5pm. To leave work at 5, I need to get there right at 8am. To get to work at 8, I need to go swimming at 5am. To get to the gym that early requires a 4:30am wake up time. And the only way I’m ever going to wake up that early is to do it everyday, even weekends – I don’t even know who I am anymore…

The big downside to a 4:30am morning is that it requires a 9pm bedtime. Shutting my day down so early will be the toughest part for me – also waking up in the mornings – also actually exercising. Ok, it’s all going to be the toughest part. But if it wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be any fun, right?

Well, I did it – I signed up for the 2013 Florida Ironman! Which, even that proved challenging. The 2012 IM sold out in 16 minutes, so I knew this one was going to be quick as well. Sunday morning I was sitting at my computer frantically refreshing the registration page. Good thing, it turns out, as the 2013 IM sold out in under a minute. Whew. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, it’s all easy from here, right?