I am alive!

Well, delays and a crazy spring have kept me very busy wrapping up the school year and heading into the summer.  The ING race went well with a final time I was a bit disappointed in of 2:20.  At the 9 mile mark I was right on pace and felt great, but the last four miles were mostly uphill, and my lack of hill training caught up to me and slowed the pace down.  All in all it was a good day and the run with my friends Dawn and Michelle was great.  My goal in the beginning was to try and become more proficient at the run, and enjoy it.  I can say unequivocally that I met those goals.  The main thing now is that I enjoy my running workouts and look forward to them.  I think that incorporating speed work for the first time has paid great dividends, and now 10 min per mile is my warm-up pace, not my race pace.

The past two months involved a nice week off in Florida after the ING, and two four week cycles of a build program in my triathlon training.  I am swimming about 4,000 yards a week, running about 4 hours and biking about 4 hours.  Next week begins the first real strenuous test in training and the updates will begin again.

I am officially entered in the Augusta Half Ironman, and have four other friends who are in the race along with me.  One of them is a full Ironman already, one has completed several half-Ironman's, and the other is a newbie (he is a 3:10 marathoner already).  Needless to say I am the least accomplished of the group.

I am also thinking about using the race as an opportunity to raise funds for a group who assists visually impaired athletes compete in triathlon.  The Augusta race will be the debut of Operation Refocus from the C Different Foundation .  This group will consist of visually impaired veterans and I think it is a great cause.  I will update a little later as to what the plan is, but I think that raising money for a group like this should be an easy ask.

Lastly, a health update.  I have finally broken the mythical 200 barrier.  I have not weighed less than 200 since before I was married (1998), and mostly stayed around the 205-210 region.  My “winter coat” this year had me at close to 220 in January before my run training began.  This week I clocked in at 199.6 lb.  That is a big milestone for me, and I would love to be close to 190 by race day.  I am also doing ab work as well as some quick circuit lifting while at the gym.  I feel great an look forward to the challenge that training will bring over the next few months.