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?

2012 was a great year, epic in some ways and really mellow in others, I traveled much less this year compared to years past. I feel like it became two very different parts where my focus changed drastically in July. The first half of the year was mainly focus on Ironman training and not much else. Life was eat, train, work, train, eat, sleep, repeat. The second half of the year had a smattering of triathlon but my focus was on grad school and work, throw in a mid year injury and there wasn’t much exciting training happening. Here’s a look back at 2012:

January: The year started off just like last year with a half marathon on New Years Day. It wasn’t an organized half as we don’t have one in Colorado but it’s a fun tradition and I ran it as a virtual race.

January had a little fun in the mountains but mostly the focus was on Ironman CDA training

February brought a lot of cold running biking and not enough swimming (this story could be a repeat, I am shocked I made it through IMCDAs swim). I also PR’d in a 10 mile race

March was a big month of training with a lot of daily double workouts.

I also traveled to Oregon for a family funeral, although expected it was sad but good to see family.

In April my mom had a big birthday so we had lots of fun family activities

Cog train after running 14 miles that morning. Later in the month we drove out to Vegas for our first Triathlon of the year

This was not my favorite race, in fact it might have been the worst time I have ever had in a race, the temp spiked to over 100 degrees on the run, it was unexpected so they were running out of water and the gatorade they were serving was hot. It was incredibly difficult but good for mental toughness training.

May was the biggest training month for IMCDA, we were in peak training for most of the month so it was nice to throw in some fun “training” races like the greenland trail 25k and the Boco Loco century ride

My first ride over 100 miles! Then we celebrated mothers day with a 9k and lots of food!

I then traveled to New Mexico for work. I couldn’t bike or swim but I was able to get a couple runs in with the bison.

June’s focus was training, tapering and traveling to Coeur d’Alene, it was fun to be out there with people from the Tri club

Completing an Ironman was amazing and beyond words, it was incredible, I can’t wait to do it again! There is much more I would like to say about the experience of my first Ironman and especially about lessons learned but I think that needs it’s own post.

After Ironman the plan was to continue to do local tris but with a major shift in focus to trail running for a September ultra, but with an injury less than two weeks after ironman and the realities of grad school that had been neglected because of ironman the ultra didn’t happen. I did have the chance to participate in an ultra relay with friends from work and had a BLAST! I hope to do more relays.

After our van was done, beers and breakfast burritos! In August I was supposed to run a trail half marathon in Beaver Creek but I sat out with a very sick pup but mom and Cory killed it!

I also got to snuggle with a skunk

September I was supposed to race my last tri of the year but it was trumped by travel to a conference for work.

October saw an increase in miles again, lots of grad work and a trip to Ohio for work, I am so excited to partner with this University!

November came and went fast but the best part was a family 10k and Thanksgiving

December was great and filled with family and fun, I was spoiled with lots of new gear that I can’t wait to get out and use

And while it’s been nice to have a relaxing holiday, Ironman Lake Tahoe is now less than 9 months away.That means that starting Monday training will get serious and race specific.

While 2012 was a good year I can’t wait to apply the things I learned in 2012 to make 2013 great! How was your year?

I am here, alive and…training. A lot has happened since I stopped blogging. I didn’t mean to stop I was traveling for work and had no time and then I was traveling for my birthday and just, got out of the habit. It didn’t help that two people who worked for me left and we haven’t hired anyone yet. But enough of the excuses I want to be better at blogging because I really want to record the journey that Cory(hubby) and I are starting. While I was MIA We signed up for a halfiron man, I am beyond excited. We also signed up for a marathon in May, I love this marathon and have wanted to do it ever since I wanted my brother finish it two years ago (have I mentioned that I am the only one in my family that hasn’t completed multiple marathons?). So far our race list for winter/spring looks like this:

December 4th: Pueblo’s Rock Canyon Half Marathon (maybe)
December 18th: Rudolph’s Revenge 5K
January 1st: Bad Ass Half Marathon
January 15th: Frosty’s Frozen 5 Miles
February 19th: Snowman Stampede 10 Miles
May 1st: Colorado Marathon!!
June 4th: Boulder Sunrise Olympic triathlon
June 25th: Pacific Crest Half ironman
October 2nd: The Bear Chase Race 50K

We obviously need some races between June and October but we will figure those out later.

The last few months I haven’t just been sitting around, I have (mostly) healed from my knee injury and am now focusing on training for a couple half marathons that are coming up. My training plan looks something like this:

Sunday:
Long Run (10+ miles)
Monday:
am: Lift Class
pm: Yoga
Tuesday:
am: swim
pm: Interval Run
Wednesday:
am: Lift Class
pm: recovery Swim/run
Thursday:
am: Spin
pm: Yoga
Friday:
Race pace or tempo run and swim
Saturday:
Long bike ride (30+ miles)

There are a few issues with it, I am only riding twice a week and one of those is a spin class and I am only running 3 maybe four times a week. When we start training for the marathon I would like to be running at least 4 to 5 times a week. I would also like to be swimming and biking 3 times a week each. I just can’t seem to make it all fit and have a recovery day that Cory keeps reminding me that we need. Stay tuned for our half ironman/marathon plan starting in January.

I decided that after 3 weeks of NO running that I should take my damaged knee out for a test run. I planned to go only 2 miles and run really slow. At about a mile and three quarters I was getting excited, I didn’t have any pain until that point and in my head I was planning a comeback marathon in November or December. Somehow my body must have known my devious plans because suddenly I got a shooting pain in my knee that brought me to a walk, I walked for a minute and was able to start running again but I was so disappointed. Not even two miles…..really? I guess I will set my sights on something a little more realistic. Like a 5 mile trail run in early October.

Given that I have just now decided when I will start racing again and how far it will be, that means that I don’t have a training plan and haven’t had one in a while. I HATE not having a plan. I am flailing a bit right now trying to figure out a plan. I don’t have another triathlon planned until next year so I don’t have a lot of motivation to ride my bike or swim. So one of my tasks for the weekend is to sit down with my husband and write out a training plan for September. I would like to run the 5 mile race in under 45 minutes. I want to work on my speed this fall so when half ironman training starts in December I will be ready to start adding miles on.

Another goal of mine was to really start eating healthier so it will be easier on my body when training really starts to ramp up this winter. This may prove to be difficult given that I will be traveling for almost 3 weeks out of September. This is NOT the norm for my job, I rarely ever travel, although I will now in my new position. I know that many athletes travel for their day jobs and find time to train and eat well on the road, I am not one of those people. Once off my daily routine I tend to let everything go, don’t exercise and eat anything in sight. I really don’t want to do that this time, mostly given that I will be traveling for such a long period of time (I don’t want to come back 10 lbs heavier)! SO I really need to figure out how to keep some normality on these trips (which include, Houston, NYC and Vail).

Wish me luck, Happy September everyone!

We are leaving for our first triathlon tomorrow. I am nervous and excited. I am hoping I don’t come in last! Training has been sporadic lately with injuries, races and work getting in the way. Our next race is in late July so I hope to be much more prepared. We are traveling to Park City Utah for this race. At first it seemed like a great idea when we signed up for it, but after checking the water temperature last night I am a bit freaked out. The water is 15 to 20 degrees colder that I have trained in YIKES! Becoming a “tri-athlete” has been expensive, tiring and taken a lot of sacrifices, so I hope it’s worth it! I hope to next year complete the Boulder Half Ironman, it will be the biggest, hardest, best thing I will have ever done!