Late last year, a friend in Seattle suggested we train for an Ironman 70.3 from opposite coasts. He did the runs, swims, and bike rides along the Pacific Ocean, and I followed suit along the Chesapeake Bay. We weren’t sure whether we’d meet in the middle for an organized event in Nebraska, or save on travel costs with an unofficial “Do-It-Yourself” approach in our backyards.
About halfway through training, he dropped out because of a knee injury. After 16 weeks of prep, I felt ready, so I set out on my own—no aid stations or medals waiting at the finish line—and accomplished the trek to Annapolis, Maryland, and back in the middle of a snowstorm, with 84 laps in the community pool counting as my 1.2-mile swim. Later on, I moved to Jackson, Wyoming, where my runs, swims, and bike rides would take place in the shadow of the Tetons.
I decided to increase my training workload to try for a full-distance Ironman, also DIY, in Grand Teton National Park. I doubled everything from the 70.3 training block except for the weekend long runs. The schedule as written would have quickly had me running marathons the day after punishing bike rides that took half a day and marked my longest-ever distances in the saddle.
Trail runs and lake swims easily eclipsed the distances I’d done for my high school cross country and swim teams, respectively. And the time was hard to schedule around my 9-to-5. I found a few encouraging partners to swim, ride, and bike with, but I did the majority of the sessions on my own.
The joy of training in pristine wilderness, as spring turned to summer, turned out to be solid motivation. After missing only a handful of workouts over 16 weeks, I felt ready. I had done another solo half-Ironman to get a feel for the course, my gear, and my fitness level.
The week before my target DIY attempt on August 8, I raced a short gravel triathlon with some friends in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, placing second in the first-timers category. The week of my taper, I relaxed with virtually no workouts. On the day of my attempt, unfortunately, a thick smoke from a West Coast wildfire filled the valley.
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