Ironman Training Diary - May 8, 2026

Up at 5:35am today, waking up before the alarm is always a plus in my book. Headed over to the gym and spent the first 15 minutes or so stretching and knocking out pushups. Then I jumped on a stationary bike and completed 5.04 miles in 20 minutes. Trying to keep things a bit light due to this unexpected left calf issue that popped up earlier in the week due to stretching on that wooden incline block I mentioned a few days ago. What a mistake that was.

After returning home I spent a few minutes reading the first chapter of The Norwegian Method Applied, authored by two-time Olympian Marius Bakken. I’m already using the Garmin Half Marathon Plan with the goal of running an August 23, 2026 1/2 marathon in under 2 hours, however I appreciate what Bakken is getting at regarding paying close attention to overtraining and so hope to incorporate some of his advice.

Breakfast was 3 eggs, a large salad, two pieces of toast made from homemade bread, and some feta cheese. For lunch I’m planning on tuna and rice, and then for dinner we will make our standard Friday night homemade pizza using Dewey’s pizza dough.

At the end of this morning’s workout I ran into a guy who occasionally joins the Saturday running group. He is a real beast, in his 60s and can clearly run circles around people half his age. We were shooting the breeze talking about various races we’ve done, and speaking of overtraining he casually mentioned he was training for an Ironman a few years ago but wound up severely injuring himself due to overtraining to the point that he had to have surgery. LOL this does not inspire confidence, but it is a great reminder that what I’m embarking upon is a marathon and not a sprint. Well it’s an Ironman, but you get the point.

I’ve spent some time this week building an AI agent that can act as a training consultant. Among other things it synchronizes data from my Garmin watch and generates reports such as this one which shows my sleep patterns and resting heart rate: