Slicing up the elephant

Fifty weeks of training. Ack, that sounds like the Sentence of Doom. Far too much to contemplate! I mean, we're talking about a tired, rapidly-aging, not-so-spry, way-too-heavy old lady here! How do I break it down into manageable bites?

One resource that's been very helpful so far has been the gold standard of ironman training texts, Going Long by Joe Friel and Gordon Byrn, that I've already quoted.

(Excuse me while I think out loud and make notes to myself on my blog).

Here are the punctuation points for my Bigass Year of Training, so far:

• Macro Cycle 1: 7 weeks - November 21 to January 9, ending with the Goofy Challenge at Disneyworld (26 km Saturday, 42 km Sunday)
• Macro Cycle 2: Approx. 11 weeks - January 9 to March 27, ending with a spring marathon (Ocean Drive in Cape May, NJ on March 26?)
  
• Macro Cycle 3: Approx. 11 weeks - March 27 to June 12, including an Olympic triathlon on May 21 and a half IM on June 11
• Macro Cycle 4: 12 weeks of summer - June 12 to September 4, including a marathon in Calgary on July 9 and a sprint tri on August 27
  
• Macro Cycle 5: 9 weeks - September 4 to November 4, leading up to the full IM on November 4
  

Now the challenge will be setting the priorities and objectives for each macro cycle and fine-tuning it for each discipline (swimming, biking, and running) within each cycle.

That's how I'll cut apart the elephant into easily-consumed tasty bite-sized morsels. Preferably thin marinated strips roasted on skewers with a piquant Thai peanut sauce, please.

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Note to self: Yurtie recommends that I do another Olympic or half IM in August/September. Think about Steelhead (~August 5), Timberman (~Aug 19), or Diamondman (~Sept 11).