One Year Ago Today...

I was doing the Florida Ironman. Wow, what a year it's been too.

Marshall, my training buddy last year (see photo at left, race day), showed up at my door this morning for our weekly long run with his Florida IM cap on and big grin on his face. "Here we are again, Cin!" We laughed and reminisced about last year and how much fun we had in Panama City, even though our Ironman races didn't turn out the way we wanted them to.

Marshall and I go way back. He and his wife, Lynne, have been close friends of ours for almost 20 years now. And although my friendship was with Lynne first, Marshall and I have several things in common: we are the same age, our fathers died the same year and they were the same age, but most importantly, our spouses are eerily similar in many ways: they are both somewhat "aloof", independent people who rarely show any emotion and who have a high need for control. They're both great people, just not the most affectionate people in the world. Marshall has been quite humorous about his wife's low libido and how whatever Lynne wants, Lynne usually gets. So we usually have a lot to talk about on our long runs.

So, today we ran 2 hrs and 1 minute and I felt great - woo hoo!!!!  I could've gone another half hour easily. What a change from last week. It was a huge confidence booster!

Came home and went on Ironman.com immediately. Scott, as I mentioned here a few times, is doing Florida and its his first IM. He did the swim in 1:11 and has been averaging 21 mph on the bike. As I write this, he is between mile 55 and 95. Another guy I know who is doing FL, Joe Gregg, did a 1:06 swim but there's nothing reported on the bike yet so I'm a bit worried. Hoping it's going well.

A few notes on this last week....
Tuesday: I rode 35 miles by myself. It was a beautiful afternoon, about 67 degrees, but the wind came up as I left Greeley. It was a pretty stiff headwind going north but I wanted to ride bad enough that I decided to ride into it and push the pace to get a good workout. And I did!  My legs were still tired from the 107 mile ride on Sunday but I decided to keep going. It was a good ride but I'm not used to riding at that time of day 2:15 - 5:45 and there was a ton of traffic on the roads. Ugh. I rode up the hill on 257 south of Windsor and between the wind and all the big trucks, I was dying to get home. Glad I did it but not the most enjoyable ride.

Wedsnesday: Master's swim - did most of the workout but not all of it. Still felt tired and didn't have much oomph. Had some stomach issues so aborted the rest of the workout and lifted weights at home.

Thursday: Awesome run!  Ran an hour listening to the soundtrack from Warren Miller's latest ski flick Wintervention - download that puppy!  Can't wait to run again this week to listen to it again.

Friday: Forced myself to the pool (which is no fun on Fridays because no one is there and I hate swimming by myself) and made myself swim 30 minutes nonstop, after warming up. I was dreading it but after I got into a rhythm I started to enjoy it. But as soon as I hit 30 mins, I was outta there!  People think running is boring (which I have never understood) but try swimming laps in a 25 yrd pool by yourself, with no music. BORING!  I like Master's swim and even plan to keep doing it after the Ironman, but to swim laps by myself - aint gonna happen unless I have to.

All in all a good week. Today's run was definitely the highlight!  Tomorrow, I'm riding 3-4 hrs with Sarah, Brenda, Kevin, Todd, and possibly Marshall. I think S and B are going 2-3 hrs and running 30 mins but I want to ride a bit further and not run. I don't want to push my luck with being able to run well so I'm doing the bare minimum of running. I hope Todd will ride the last hour with me because I want to try going faster the last hour. We'll see.

This tapering thing is really cool. Some people hate it but I'm loving it.

Off to the UNC football game with Kurt and the kids - it's supposed to be 76 degrees today - good football weather, esp after a really good long run!

More soon...