My husband did his first IM in Louisville this past weekend & what an amazing experience. The crowds were great, the volunteers were wonderful & my husband was more than amazing! I am so proud of him & all of the training that led up to it. He is truly awesome!
Now that it’s over, we are both kind of in a fog…now what? He has so much time on his hands and doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. We are looking forward to riding & running together again soon, but there was so much leading up to IM Lou. Sure, there’s volunteering at local races, etc but what do you when you’re used to 3 hours of training before or after work? 7 hour training on Saturdays?
Is there a normal phase of lull and questioning for those of you have done an Ironman?
I’m about 11 days out from my 1st, and am anticipating some “lag time”. You know all those household project you neglected for the past 3 months? Time to paint…
Ironman is a fairly selffish sport. Use that time to get back to reality and think outward (just my 2 cents). The initial reaction is “man, I feel great…I could have pushed harder…I’m going to run 20 miles next weekend”. What you usually find 3 weeks later is that you’ve developed a cold and your body starts to show signs of the fatique. Then again…maybe none of this comes up and he’s a mortal.
Chill out, relax, kick back, drink some margaritas and start next season’s warm-up after being glued to the Kona IM Live broadcast in a few months!
Watch out for AIDS (after ironman depression syndrome). A lot of athletes get pretty down, and even depressed, after ironman. They work so hard for a big goal, achieve it, and then they have nothing to do. No motivation. Life seems so bland after such a huge day.
Sign up for another race (a shorter one) to give yourself something to look forward to and something to focus on.
Just finished IMC on Sunday. I’m taking this entire week completely off from training. I’ll go surfing (which I always do anyway, even during training), but no SBR at all this week.
Next week, I’ll resume training, but obviously lighter…like an hour/day, maybe 2-3 on Saturdays max. I have a 1/2 IM on Sept. 22nd, but after that, it will be basically maintenance training until January. Looking forward to a break.
Just find something else that interests you/him.
Do you really have to ask this question? What Marcus Mucus said…tell him you still want him to be active, but you want to be more “involved”. Maybe put one of his bike jersey’s on and a sexy bottom (or no bottom), and let him know you want to ride with him daily. Come on - make it fun…
