Well, it’s certainly been a while. I have been busy at the training. Haven’t raced since late June, but I certainly haven’t been wasting my time. July was easily my biggest training month ever and I was surprisingly consistent. To help things, a friend and cyclist just recently moved to the area and got me out on the hills of Cincy along with another UD alum. It opened my eyes to untapped bike potential. Now I can’t wait to get into the fall when I can really start hitting the hills. Also, I’ve been able to push up my run endurance in preparation for October’s marathon without dropping off on the speed as of yet. I’m still pushing sub 8 minute miles for up to 10 miles with hills. Not too shabby. I will finally have another race report coming early next week, and hopefully it’s a positive one considering this is my A triathlon of the season. I’ve never had an A race before, so let’s see how well I tailored my training plan in my first year of periodized self-coaching.
I race Chicago Accenture International Distance triathlon this Sunday. I don’t know my start time as of yet and guess I won’t find out until packet pick-up Saturday afternoon, no big deal though. For those non-triathletes out there (assuming anyone reads this other than myself), the international distance is in km so I will translate (1.5K (a little less than a mile) swim, 40K (24.8mile) bike, and 10K (6.2 mile) run). It’s my first race of this distance in 2 years, but it’s really not a huge leap from sprints so the distance doesn’t bother me. I’m just hoping I’ve gotten as much faster at this triathlon thing as I think I have.
If anyone does read this and is bored Sunday around mid-day…you can track me (or other members of my family) at www.chicagotriathlon.com by going to the race tracker link. From there, if you know me personally you can search by name. Otherwise, my race number is 4760, my sister is number 4468 and my dad is number 7339.
My goal for this race is to finish under or as close to 2:30:00 as possible and to be top 5 in my age group (clyde 200-224). I’m guessing there will be about 70 in my AG, and 2h30min will be a 20+ min drop from my PR at this distance.
That’s what’s up in the world of triathlon…now on to the more exciting stuff.
Obviously training and racing is an important part of my life, but I’ve been busy elsewhere as well. First and foremost, on August 2, 2008, my beautiful and always understanding fiancé, Susan, became my beautiful and understanding wife. The week of the wedding was pretty rough since I had to work long hours while she was in her hometown stressing about all the unfinished odds and ends of wedding planning. However, as things often do, everything worked out great. From the rehearsal on…it was basically smooth sailing. It was great to see so many people come out to celebrate with us, a lot of family and friends I hadn’t seen in a while and it seemed like everyone had a great time. The reception dance floor was very active all night and we haven’t heard a negative review of the weekend as of yet. The Delphos Microtel, which opened just in time to house our college friends, is probably regretting not waiting until after our wedding to open. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures to post at this point, so maybe I’ll add them later.
I learned throughout the wedding weekend why people take honeymoons…weddings are exhausting. The honeymoon went amazingly as well as we ventured to St. Lucia (one of the Windward Islands in the west indies of the Caribbean if you don’t know). The only drawback was getting stuck a day in Atlanta on the way down. However, Sandals was great in their customer service and bumped our reservations back a day, so we still got a full week in all-inclusive paradise. There are a million pictures of the honeymoon, but I don’t have them with me, so sorry again. Highlights included: zip-lining through the rain-forest, snorkeling, learning to captain a catamaran (not difficult), candlelight dinner on the beach, tropical golf, being witnesses in the wedding of a couple we met in the airport on the way down (they were stranded with us), and pina coladas among so much more.
In other exciting news, the new wife and I close on our first home this afternoon, so needless to say my life is not lacking in excitement. We will need to bring the home into the modern age, but working on it will be a lot of fun. I’m already trying to figure out how I’m going to make my half of the garage into a heavenly bike garage/indoor training center (sorry car, you’re parking outside).
I guess that’s it for now. Race Report will be coming sometime next week. Until then…
No comments:
Post a Comment