The Road to Kona; Chicago Edition #2

I am occasionally asked what it is like to train for an Ironman. Of course there is periodized training, heart rate and watts per kilogram. However, for some reason the question always comes up about how early I wake up to get my training in. It seems the general public, and a lot of coaches, feel that training has to occur before 5 am. Personally, I like to sleep in. Sure, there are those long bike days and early morning race starts, but otherwise, I feel I can get the same workout in around noon as I do early in the morning. I mention this because this morning we ran the Chicago 13.1 half marathon. We had to wake up around 4 am to get the dogs out, eat breakfast and catch the bus to the start. My schedule had me running for 45 minutes, but we signed up a while back for this race and figured I'd just take it easy and enjoy the run. The first few miles I was really tired and generally not in a good mood. Should I just run for 45 minutes and stop? Why did I even get out of bed? Then I took a deep breath and figured it will be good mental training for Kona, which really means that I gathered a little pride and kept running. While a simple 1/2 marathon makes up around 9% of the total Ironman distance, it is still a respectable race that can't be taken mailed in. While Kona is still four months away, the next 4 - 6 weeks of training will be key to solidify my base and prepare for those early mornings to get in those 6 hour bike rides.