It took me three websites to find my own site. Guess I really don't want people to read my blog.
Ok...what's been going on since February...um. I did this little thing called an IRONMAN. I would have to say it was the best day of my life and will stay up there for quite sometime. 22 hours before the gun went off on my first IM I signed up for my second Ironman. When I got to the counter I told the guy "I don't know why I'm here...I haven't even done my first one." He smiled and said, "you must've had a great training year." Yep I did and that is what brought me to that table. I knew when I singed up for my first on that it wasn't that I was signing up for that one day event. That I was signing up for the 365 days of training, sacrifice, lighter wallet. That day was just the finally of the fireworks display. And, boy was it a good ending!
I did the St. Louis marathon on April 10th in 80 degree weather with 80% humidity (end of July type of weather) with a disappointing 5 hours 15 minute time. There was a laundry list of things I did wrong - walking too much the days following, wasn't ready for that type of temp, let the mass crowd of people play on me mentally, etc
I turned my attention to triathlons and did my first one at Liberty. It was great - so many people came out to watch, do the event it was like going to class but with swimming. The swim I survived but realized I would have to work on my citing, the bike - that was my training ground I was ready for this one - I went full out, looked bad ass and didn't let one person pass me. The run - I couldn't breath for 6 miles so it was just a hour sufferfest. But I finished my first Triathlon and was an official Triathlete!
I followed that one up with Wiconia - did much better on the swim, put down a solid bike - again no one passed me - and survived the run. I did pretty well in my age group and even beat a girl that I knew from bike racing by two minutes overall.
That same girl said something to a friend of mine about the next race, Minniman, so I knew that I had some beef with her - She was going down! The swim was short by solid. I was gaining confidence and even ruffled a few feathers while I was swimming. The bike I ended up having the best split out of all the age group women even beating 2 out of the 7 elite women including the girl I had beef with, the run I held steady but had to deal with stomach cramps for about 10 seconds. I tried to run this one girl down which I found out later was in my age group and beat me by 5 seconds. Didn't matter - I still got 3rd in my age group.
I did a half marathon on a whim - Red White and Boom and PR-ed with a 2:02 time. I was kind-of upset at the time because I really wanted under 2 but the heat got to me at 7am. (race started at 6am)
Few weeks later I did the Insane Terrain 200k bike ride with 13k of climbing. It was a great day. I had a blast. I heard about the last 2 miles and how hard it was but unless you do it you don't know how Fucking hard it really was - no on told me about the 6 false flats just that it was 2 big climbs. Really? It was one big climb. Although it was just a bike ride it took me about a week to recover from this event it was so taxing on my body.
At the end of July I did my final race before IM - Chisago half. This was the test. Finish with a smile under 6 hours. And that's what I did - 5:47. The swim was so foggy you couldn't see the next buoy, the bike was ok but I held back and the run went better then expected. Even spectators said I look good - and surprisingly I felt good!
Two weeks later I went out to Madison and checked out the course for the first time. After tackling the entire course and running half the course I knew I was ready.
I'll post the entire story about my IM day hopefully soon but I worn you it will be long. As for my next few post it will be my blog of my training for this year. Hopefully I can keep it up - it is hard when your working and training about 60+ hours a week.
