By Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessica Pigott
Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessica Pigott riding in the 2010 Lanzarote Ironman triathlon.
“Let’s register for the hardest Ironman in the world!” These were the words that I heard from my training partner Air Force Master Sgt. Kevin Labrie exactly a month after competing in our first Ironman triathlon in Austria, July 2009. After much research about the event, and Kevin filling in details about the hardest Ironman in Lanzarote, Spain we signed up for the event, which took place May 22, 2010.
We had less than a year to train and decided to change the whole approach from our first training schedule. I have to say that the last two months of Ironman training are the worst; your workouts take up your entire weekend and you have no time for much else.
Our longest training week was 21 hours total of cardio training. This included swimming early in the morning at a base 40 minutes away, then biking and running at lunch time or after work. We incorporated a lot of brick workouts that included bike-to-run transitions to get our legs accustomed to the change. We never cut corners during our training and stayed mindful of integrity which is our first core value in the Air Force.
The wisdom and experience I have gained from completing two Ironman in less than a year is that it takes a lot of dedication and determination to get through. There are a lot of times your mind plays tricks on you and you feel like you need to quit and then you dig deep in your mind and pull out some saved energy to get you through.
The experience is addicting I must admit, once you get to the event and you are around all the other Ironman that have put in same amount of training you have and sometimes more. It’s a very happy and exciting feeling.
Through this I also learned that I can teach others the proper way to train and stay healthy but they need to understand it’s not temporary it’s a lifestyle change for the better and the future.
It takes dedication to get through the last two months of training. You can train alone during the first months, while you are building a base, but getting through those last couple of months you really need someone to help push you.
Nutrition plays a huge part in endurance training; you are losing so much nutrition that it is vital to stay hydrated and properly fueled before, during and post workouts. I have always been a fit athlete growing up and was always was taught to eat healthy. I must admit that I do have a vice and its sweets and sometimes after a six-hour bike ride I will stop at the finish and enjoy a fantastic ice cream to end the long training day (ice cream does have calcium in it which is good for the bones). But while doing all this endurance training you need to make 100 percent sure that you are replacing what you are depleting during training.
Once the training day is finished you need to make sure you are getting in healthy foods to take care of your body. Healthy food breaks down in the system almost instantly, which then refuels the body of nutrition it needs. I also incorporated sports massages into my post workouts, which I feel helped. Massages break up lactic acid that builds up during endurance training.
It’s also important to taper off two to three weeks prior to the event. This means you cut your workouts way down and your intensity goes to about 40 percent. You want to get on the start line with a fresh body. So even though tapering off makes you feel like you won’t be able to perform at your top ability, once you get to the start line fresh it’s amazing how well you do perform!
In the days leading up to Ironman Lanzarote we heard people talking about the killer climbs, hot weather and challenging wind conditions on the course. We wanted to make sure we were 100 percent fresh on the line and we wanted to get to the finish line with no injuries.
Since this would be our last Ironman training together, Kevin and I decided that we would enjoy ourselves and stay together. That is really difficult with the three disciplines thrown into the mix, especially the swim start. But we did it.
At 10:50 p.m. Kevin, his wife Trish, his son Kagen and I all crossed the Lanzarote, hardest Ironman in the world, finish line. We both performed to the best of our abilities and pushed each other on the swim and the bike – even with a flat tire. Then, on the run, we helped push one of our American friends to the finish.
We remembered that encouraging others to meet their fitness goals is embodied in the last two of our core values, “service before self” and “excellence in all we do.”
