30 days to a habit change - day 9

Back on the wagon!  The Ironbaby threw a kink in things, but that's better than fine.  I had the time of my life!

If you missed the comment from the previous habit change post, here's an important link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/10/change-your-life-habit-28-day-rule
The article states that the number of days to create a habit is not a hard and fast rule.  It can take shorter or longer, depends on the task, and depends on the person.  And you can skip days.  Weird.

Now that the Ironbaby is over, I'm working on creating some great habits.  These are mostly about setting aside the proper amount of time to get things done.  

I can say for sure that the habit of eating truly healthy (a modified paleo diet) is 100% ingrained.  I ate some junky food the few days following the Ironbaby, but it was hardly any and I found it gross.  

My checking my tasks and updating my calendar habits haven't quite taken hold yet, but they are starting to gain traction.  Constant improvement is the only goal.

That reminds me, I have always PR'd all four of my Ironmans.  Not so difficult when you start at 17 hours.  :)

Race Numbers

Just a quick tally of the times for the Ironbaby.  I keep two versions of the time.  One is the official time and includes all the carnage and time delays.  The other is without those issues and better reflects what I'm capable of - a true measure of my own fitness.  It's good to know the second one so I can target it in a normal race.

2.4 mile swim - 1 hour. 1:32 / 100 meter pace.

Transition from pool to bike - 25 minutes. (Had to drive to house).  In a normal Ironman, this would be 10 minutes or less.

112 mile bike - 6:30, including a bike wreck and changing a flat.  Time actually moving was 6:12, an 18 mph avg.  

Transition from bike to run - 10 minutes.

26.2 mile run - 4:55, an 11:16 min/mile pace.  

So, the official time goes down as 13:15.  A massive PR over my last Ironbaby of 15 hours.  And if I was to compare my fitness now to Ironman Wisconsin in 2007, I went 12:42 compared to 12:59 back then.  Nice improvement! 12:42 = 13:15 minus an extra 15 minutes of transition time and 18 minutes of bike wreckage and flat repairing out on the road.

I don't want to get into a whole bunch of "what if's" and "well.....".  You get what you get on race day and you really can't compare two races or even the same race on different days.  Weather and lots of other conditions makes every race a singularity.  Ironman Wisconsin was hillier, but this Ironbaby was like biking in a hurricane. And the previous Ironbaby felt like I was doing a race in Antarctica.

What I do know is I finished this race feeling absolutely amazing, unlike ever before.  It's a real tribute to how some key changes in my diet and training has made an incredible difference.

I'll write up a race report soon with the real dirt!

IronBaby Donations Total - $1195+!

We raised over $1175 for the three foundations!

We asked people to donate and email us with how much, so there's always a few that don't get counted.  I know of two donations where the amount was not specified.

Here is the list of sponsors.  Thank you so much and let's do this again next year!  If your name is not mentioned, make sure to email texafornia at gmail.com and let me know so I can add it.  And we're always looking to add corporate sponsors and more racers for next year.

Nina J.

Travis K.

Rico S.

Brent E.

Ironman bobby and Konektas

Donna D.

Darren of Average Bloke Triathlon Podcast

Dave B.

Erik B.

Tucker M.

Elizabeth M.

Longmire Learning Center (Kai's School!)

Chris/Sheri Hardbeck

Jim & Shari White of Tri-nrgy.com

Brian B. of the Stay Tuned Report podcast

Meryll Lynch/Bank of America

Iain E. from Switzerland

Jeff C. (Adam's Spices)

Suunto

Hornet Juice

SwiMP3

Skin Sake

Trinowsports.com

Update on Friday, October 16, 2009 at 4:11AM by ZenTri

Ironbaby Race Donations Break $1200!

Alan D. sent in a few bucks and now we're sitting pretty at $1220 bucks.  Wow!  Thanks so much everybody and come out and join us in person next year.

About the IronBaby (Video)

Link to full description and donation page.

Podcast - Zen Goals

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

Don't forget that tomorrow (Friday) is the IRONBABY!  You can join in on the fun by following along on Twitter.com/ZenTriathlon.

Goal setting and achieving is an interesting animal.  Setting big goals way off in the future such as, "I want to be ripped." or "I want the British out of India." are simply too big and don't tell you how to actually accomplish those goals.

Instead, a better approach is to do the correct things right here and right now that a person who would achieve those goals would be doing.  You have unlimited number of opportunities every day to eat right and train right, just like a pro triathlete does.  "What would Craig Alexander do right now?" is a question you could ask yourself continuously to triathlon greatness.

I talk on this episode about this concept in detail.  I also play a clip from a Zen talk in Austin about this exact same thing and how Gandhi used it to take back India from the British.  If he could free an entire country, you can eat your veggies. 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN