Triathlons

OK, Many of you have heard by now that I've started training for triathlons again and you have been asking me "Why on Earth do you want to do that? Don't you know you're not 18 anymore?" Well the answer to the second question is easy. Yes I know I'm not 18 anymore, my body reminds me everytime I get done with a long ride or a run. The answer to the first question is a little longer.

I woke up one day last summer and realized that I was fat and out of shape. Now those are relative terms, I could still pass the PT test and I was under my maximum body fat percentage, but I wasn't happy with myself. So I asked myself what I could do to get back in better shape. At the same time I happened to be emailing back and forth with a couple of friends who knew that I would be in the KC area this summer and were looking forward to getting together with me. Both are fairly active guys and I've done either a triathlon or an adventure race with both them and both guys individually suggested doing another one together this summer. Viola, my fitness plan came to me all at once.

So I've set a couple of goals for myself for this summer. One I will complete two Half Ironmen triathlons, for those of you that don't know what that consists of it's a 1.2 miles swim followed by a 56 mile bike ride followed by a 13.1 mile run, that's a total of 70.3 miles. I did one of these when I was 26 which gives me my second goal. I decided that I wanted to do two because I want to complete at least one of these faster than I did when I was 26. That means I have to complete the race in less than 7 hours 33 minutes, hopefully since I'm older and wiser I'll be able to do both faster. Finally my third goal, which shouldn't be too hard with all the training I have to do, is to get down to 185lbs from a high of 220lbs in the spring of 2008. I'm almost there now at about 193lbs

So I've scheduled some warm up races all summer with the two Half Ironmen, Ironman 70.3 Kansas on 14 June and the Pigman Half Iron distance on 16 August. Standby for pictures and race reports.

Shantel has been ultra supportive of all this with comments like "Well, if you want some of the free beer at the end of the race you need to finish faster" and "I'm glad you think your new bike is faster, that means we can go home sooner" Geez, thanks babe. No seriously she'll be there cheering me on taking all of the pictures you should eventually see here.

James