There are many transitions in life, for me accepting transitions can be more difficult than the actual transition. This year has been full of transitions some that started out bad but ended up good; many months of unemployment for my hubby that led to a great new job, A nightmare selling process of our home that led to getting our dream house that we love, etc.

The last transition is still in the slightly painful place for me. The short story is that racing an Ironman is not in the cards for me this year. With four moves and a fairly debilitating medical issue that knocked me down for over a month I had to accept that training for IM Canada just wasn’t happening. I can only hope that it leads to something better in the end.

The good news is that I am now fully recovered from my medical issue but missing about six weeks of training so close to the race just wasn’t going to cut it. As a was trying to recover I got a terrible stomach flu, and I was a ball of stress worrying about the training I was missing, knowing that Canada was slipping through my fingers. Now I could have transferred to a later Ironman, Tahoe is still open and Maine was newly announced but I wasn’t excited about either. At that point I didn’t have the heart to keep trying and just wanted to focus on getting well. So I let my third straight year of Ironman racing go.

At first I will admit it was a relief to not stress about training that I was missing but with some distance I am starting to miss it. But with letting Ironman for this year go, I have started to dream about different (maybe bigger) challenges.

When getting back into “training” I was craving simplicity, especially with a lot of traveling coming up. So I have been focusing on running and trying to increase my milage. Following my heart, most of my miles have been on trails.

While I miss triathlon training and racing, I am loving the focus on running and especially trail running. I am also ready to start racing again so I will start with a trail half marathon at Copper Mountain, leading up to a couple marathons and a 50k in October.

We’ll see how this summer/fall goes assuming everything goes well I will be chasing some bigger goals on the trails. While I do miss Ironman, I WILL be back just not this year. I will admit it’s pretty fun to chase some new dreams.

Has life ever gotten in the way of your plans?

Just two tiny months until I toe the line at Ironman Canada. I am very excited about this race and about the venue. I can’t believe it will be here so quickly and the amount of work I need to do to get there. The next seven weeks will be full on peak training mode before taper and racing. The weather has turned so there will be many hours spent in the mountains, both in the saddle and on the trails. Canada isn’t an easy course but I am not in it for “easy”

This year hasn’t been easy with lost jobs, selling houses, moving twice and dental disaster that I won’t bore you with. The only thing to do is to shake the year off, and focus on the training. I have been looking forward to Canada for so long I want to show up healthy and ready.

So here’s to the unofficial start of summer and peak ironman training!

It also flies when you aren’t having all that much fun evidently but honestly I can’t complain. Things have been busy in my little neck of the woods. To catch up on the last couple months bullet style:

• Traveled to Mexico and back
• Came home horribly sick
• Went under contract on our house
• Worked like mad to get the house ready to close
• Rented a temporary apartment
• Ran a half marathon on Easter
• Bought a new house
• Traveled to Moab for a little training camp
• Closed on our old house
• Moved into our little apartment and a storage unit
• Continue to work on paperwork to close on new house
• Ran a mother’s day race with my mom in sleet and snow
• Oh and tried to keep up on training for a little ironman I have in less than 11 weeks

So that’s life, feeling a little like a nomad but trying to embrace to excitement of summer, the longer hours of daylight and the rising temperatures. But also hoping for a little more calm and routine going into IM Canada. I am enjoying discovering new trails to run on near our apartment and finding new pools.

In the next few weeks I expect a lot of hours in the saddle, sweating under the sun and smelling like chlorine, bring on triathlon season!

Man, I am late to this party! It’s been a bumpy ride and I hadn’t even thought of monthly goals until yesterday but I think it’s will be fun to bring them back, I do love goals. Now that my focus is shifting to training for Ironman Canada I feel refreshed and ready to get back at it. I am searching for local races to fill in my spring and summer calendar and getting excited about upcoming adventures.

March and April are crazy months here in Colorado, swinging from beautiful sun drenched 70 degree days to ice and snow the next. At least the mornings are beautiful.

With March having travel, a sort of race (details coming soon) and crazy weather I will keep my goals simple. In 2012 I was prepping for Ironman Coeur d’Alene I had what felt like a really solid month of training in March. So my goal is to beat all my totals from March 2012. Canada is just a month later so this seems like a good comparison.

I finally made the move to self hosted!

I have owned the domain name Chasingmyjoy.com for some time now but didn’t really know how to make the move to self hosted. With a little research and help it turned out to be fairly easy. I think I have the main things set up like all my archives moved over and auto redirecting set up but please let me know if something isn’t working.

It feels good to have made the move but now I need to figure out all the finer points but it’s fun to figure it all out.

Have any tips for a newbie self host-er? Anything you wish you had known earlier, or great tool you have found?

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As I wrote about in my last post 2013 was not my favorite year. Looking back is still fun and while the day to day was a little stressful there were some big sparkly moments that were great and I am sure in a few years I will remember the big highs more than anything else. So here’s a look back at 2013:

January started out with our traditional News Year Day Hungover Half (my families self run half marathon, so fun)

And a trip to Miami to run the ING Miami half marathon

February was pretty mellow with lots of training on snowy trails and time on the trainer

March took us to Cabo San Lucas to celebrate 10 years of being together.

As a happy accident Ironman Los Cabos was running while we were there and we got to watch the race, probably my favorite part of our vacation.

In April we took our first long training weekend in Moab and had a blast!

May was running our second open marathon together
And had me headed to Baja Mexico for work

June was fun and exciting with lots of training, my mom’s first triathlon and a half ironman for me.

July started with a trip to the Oregon Coast, one of my favorite places in the world.

and finished with lots of climbing mountains

In August we raced Ironman Boulder 70.3 to PRs for both Cory and me

Then Dad and Cory took third overall for relays at Boulder Sunset triathlon. They took third even through dad did the bike AND run! I was so proud. Mom took first in her age group but I didn’t get a photo =(


September was a great month, Cory took 8th overall and first in his age group at the Denver Trail Half Marathon

Then we all headed to Lake Tahoe for my second Ironman, while it was difficult I am proud that I finished!

October was pretty low key running lots of trails, one half marathon and a work trip to Ohio

November came and went quickly ending with our traditional family Turkey Trot

December didn’t have any racing for me, but lots of food, family and fun.

We end the year on an upswing with a new job for Cory and putting our house on the market to move north. Packing isn’t my favorite but I am so excited to get into a new house, new city, new start.

Happy New Year everyone, have a safe fun night!