Time Away

It's funny, now that I have a blog, how much of my time is spent thinking about it...theme ideas, avoidance, guilt, clever things to say. I apologize to my loyal fan base that I have been MIA these past couple of weeks. I will fill you in on the happenings.

Last weekend my sister and I met Trevor in Chicago for the marathon. We had a wonderful weekend of food, laughter and processing life events. I love the life he has carved out for himself there, including a lovely, turn of the century apartment; his cat Frank; his music; friends; and amazing restaurants. I have never spent time in Chicago and immediately fell in love with the city and its people. The marathon went very well and he ran/walked his way to a 6:27 finish. Julie and I ran the last half with him and were able to experience being part of a marathon when they start closing up shop...the Gatorade tables were being dumped, the "course closing" car was on our heels and the sides of the street were not as lined with people as I expected for a 50,000 participant race. Needless to say, it was a good experience being on this side of the coin. Julie was able to pick up some amazing couture from the side of the road as many casted their clothing aside while the temperatures warmed up...barely. Trevor said it looked like the two of us were fleeing our homeland as we wrapped scarves, hydration systems, running shirts around our waists and stuffed our pockets full of mittens and ear covers. It was rather hilarious.

My second week of training has happened rather uneventfully. I have lost a bit of the excitement as some weeks are just "get 'er done" weeks. That's OK. I managed my first brick of the season yesterday...a 19 mile ride/3.5 mile run with lots of zone 3 repeats (more on zones later). It was good but I was tired.

My parents and Aunt arrived in town Wednesday so my focus is less on training and more on enjoying their presence in my home. We spend so little time together that when we do, it is precious. This ironman thing is such a part of my life, not my whole life...I have so many other things that make me who I am. So, it is important for me to recognize when to take a step back and experience other events and people.

Coming up this week.....

It's a stabilizer week. In my Ironman plan, I have two weeks on and one week kinda off. So, for objective training purposes I get to go to the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and have two Lactate Threshold Tests done...bike and run. I will post the results and explanations of this later. It is very useful and fun information to have...believe me!

Week number two...down...a lot more to go!