Ironman Mark

For the next 294 days, I want to exercise consistently.  But 42 weeks is a long time to exercise consistently so I thought I’d set myself some targets using Eddington numbers.  It might not be a clever idea but, well, hear goes.

Swim

I am going to use 100m as one.  So if I swim 1,000m then that is ten.  If I swim at least 1,000m ten times then my Eddington number will be ten.

My target is going to be 40.  That means that I have to swim 4,000m or more 40 times.  That’s quite a lot of swimming but it is effectively once per week.

Bike

I am going to use one minute as one.  So, if my target was 30 then I would have to ride at least 30 minutes 30 times.

My target is going to be 80.  That pretty much means that I will have to do at least an 80 minute ride twice per week.  I chose 80 minutes as well so that it encourages me to spend more than a standard 45 minutes or an hour on the Wattbike.  It also slightly longer than a ride to work (although it probably isn’t with my current fitness) and so I might be tempted to extend it a bit.  Unlike Mr Eddington’s definition, if I ride twice in a day I will keep them as two separate rides.

Run

I am again going to use one minute as one.  And I will choose 60 as a target which means that I will have to run at least an hour three times every two weeks.

Previous Eddington numbers

Swim (based on 100m = 1)
2009: 32
2011: 27

Bike (based on minutes)
2009: 55
2011: 60

Run (based on minutes)
2009: 45
2011:  44

So the numbers I have chosen (40, 80 and 60) are substantially higher than what I achieved in 2009.  But I have more time.  The old numbers are for 26 weeks.  I now have 42 weeks (plus the last couple of weeks).  It will be challenging but do-able.

Current numbers

Swim: 5 (and 40 more 4,000m swims to achieve 40)
Bike: 4 (and 79 more 80 min rides to achieve 80)
Run: 5 (and 59 more 60 min runs to achieve 60)

Remember, it is still early days…