Back in the saddle

It's kind of nice that the long stuff is starting to feel familiar again. Rode 34 and ran 7 this weekend, and it felt short... very short. Gotta love recovery weeks. It's great to get readjusted mentally to the training flow. It'll be a bit tougher to get motivated this week, given the not-so-stellar weather, but I'm sure I'll manage :)

I managed to score an underwater housing for my digital camera for a song on ebay... allows me to take video to look at swim technique and see where I can focus on improving. I like it... and hopefully there will be some more fun uses for it in the future - less training motivated and more warm ocean snorkeling :) I'll have to see if I can find a place for some of that in the calendar.

Regaining life balance is always so tough this time of year when the early year work crunch is on and training is back with a vengeance... but I'm happy to say it's starting to come together nicely!

Cold and colder weather, Halfmax '10

Hopefully this weather will take a break and let us have some sun and warmth pretty soon. It was entirely too cold to ride outdoors this weekend - forecast indicated 38F, was actually 31F at 9am. Wow. No way am I getting out for that on the bike!

It wasn't a whole lot warmer Saturday morning, but still with the sun was quite nice to get out for a run. My 2nd double digit run of the year went quite well... kept a good mid-aerobic pace for 10mi around my favorite town lake loop. That 10mi town lake loop is a godsend - no way you can cut that long run short if you're 5mi away from the car! :)

Received my invite for 2010 Halfmax today... even though I've already registered for the event, it still felt nice to receive the invite. Was fired up about how well Halfmax '09 went... hoping for an even faster result for '10. I'd love to make TeamUSA again this year for Worlds '11... Vegas baby!

Getting rolling in 2010...

Let's see if I can't be a bit more consistent this year in keeping this thing updated :)

For 2010, its looking like I'll be racing a bit less and doing longer events. So far, the plan is...
Lonestar 70.3 - Galveston, TX
Rev3Tri Quassy Half-Iron - Middlebury, CT
Lake Stevens 70.3 - Seattle, WA
Myrtle Beach Half-Ironman (Halfmax) - Myrtle Beach, SC
Longhorn 70.3 - Austin, TX
Ironman Arizona - Tempe, AZ

We'll see about Quassy and Longhorn... would love to do all of the above, but I'm also planning on doing a few events here in town, so it might get to be a bit much. Total shocker that there are more races I'm interested in than I can physically do, huh?

3M Half Marathon is this weekend... i'm in better shape this year than last, so we'll see how it pans out. I decided to go kinda hard last year, but weighed more... we'll see how motivated I'm feeling race morning. I'm working to be more disciplined in keeping my early season intensity in check this year to ensure I finish strong for IMAZ. It's a struggle... tough to hold back when I feel so fresh from having taken time off!

More later. Hope you're all having a great new year so far!