Blogger freak out.

Apparently, Blogger thought I had died. Or was on vacation. Or just had nothing interesting/important to say. Because it hasn't been letting me log-on to post anything. But, thankfully, after much ado, I was able to bum-rush the show and hack into my own blog.

The crops are saved!

Anywho, maybe Blogger was right to keep me out, because life in these parts are pretty vanilla - I've been training, but nothing too crazy. I'm hitting the gym six days a week, but I don't think it's been with any great intensity. Or maybe it just feels that way because the sessions haven't been all that long in duration? Ironman does weird things to your exercise-based perspective. Now, if it doesn't last more than 90 minutes and/or isn't the second workout of the day, it doesn't seem like a "real" session. Oh, well.

Whatever, I've been working out. The running is probably going the best, which isn't much of surprise since running is probably my best discipline. I've been hitting the pool at least once a week for 2,000 yards, and I've been biking (on the trainer or the Keiser bike) for either 45 minutes or an hour once or twice/week. I cranked it up to an hour and 15 minutes on Saturday just to start building a little endurance in the legs. And I'm still doing at least one strength session each week, mostly core stuff like planks and dynamic movements with weights.

Not bad, I guess, considering we're still a ways out from the summer. I'm not really following any kind of training plan as yet, and I'm not sure that I'm going to - 70.3 really isn't that big of an investment, time-wise, and I think I can trust myself to get in adequate amounts of base, interval and endurance work on my own. But that might change if I feel like I'm sloughing off.

In other news, we sorta scrubbed plans for a Spring vacation - the taxman is taking us to the woodshed this year, so money is a bit tight. However, the wife might get sent to Vegas for a work conference around Memorial Day, so we might be able to turn that into a little getaway. We'll see. And we've made a tentative commitment to climb Colorado's Longs Peak in late summer/early Fall with the same crew that did the Grand Canyon last year. Fingers crossed that this comes together, because I think it would be an amazing adventure.

Other than that, nothing new to report. Hope y'all are making it through the final days of Winter with sanity intact. The sun is out today, so maybe that means that warmer temps are on the horizon.

Cheers!

Finally.

Well, it's three months into 2010, and this particular Ironman isn't looking (or feeling) all that tough anymore. Up to this point, I haven't really felt compelled to commit to a 'big' race, which would require a co-committment to an actual training schedule, so we've sort of tabled the issue for as long as possible.

But yesterday we threw down - Cath, Drew and I are registered for Racine IM 70.3, which will take place on July 18, 2010, or just under 20 weeks from now. As mentioned previously, I'm not a huge fan of repeating 'A' races, and we previously did Racine in 2006, but there were a few factors weighing in its favor:

- it's close;

- it's now a 70.3-sponsored event;

- the timing is good; and, perhaps most importantly,

- there's a revenge factor.

Yes, the 2006 version (then known as the 'Spirit of Racine' half-ironman) was a particularly horrible day to race - temps were deep into the 90s and it was very humid. No doubt the hottest race I've ever competed in, and it was miserable. I remember really wanting to be off the bike, and just struggling through those last few miles. I thought the run would be refreshing, but I jogged out of the transition area and just felt like absolute crap. I probably ran a half-mile before stopping to walk. Luckily, Drew and I met up, and he wasn't feeling much better than I did, so we suffered together - alternating long walk breaks with brief fits of running. There were people collapsed on the side of the road, all red-faced and spacey-looking. It was a pretty gruesome scene.

Of course, my amazing wife was having a great day - she passed both Drew and I relatively early in the run, looking fresh as a daisy, and went on to beat both of our asses (which she takes great pleasure in reminding us...). I think I finished in around 6 and 1/2 hours, which is a good hour longer than what I'm usually capable of. It was just brutal.

So, needless to say, Drew and I are looking for a little redemption in ol' Racine, Wisconsin this year. And I'm excited to have a goal race on the agenda. It sounds a little bratty, but I don't consider a 70.3 to be all that much of a challenge anymore, but it really is a great distance for a triathlon - long enough to be a challenge, but without the uber-long training sessions that a full IM require. I'm not sure I could mentally commit to that kind of intensity this year. So, this should be a good compromise.

I'm still not sure what we'll be doing with the rest of the year - I had thought about a possible marathon, with an eye toward qualifying for the Boston Marathon (which, for my old ass would be a 3:20.00 - I did a 3:26.00 at the Chicago marathon in 2005, so it's theoretically possible), but I'm not sure. A stand-alone marathon just seems really hard, even harder than a full IM (which, of course, makes little/no sense). I've had a few running-related injuries in the years since 2005, and I'm afraid that all that running would be an invitation to re-injury.

But, we'll see. We're taking 2010 in baby steps. At least we have our mid-year goal in place.