Random and occasional thoughts on

Year number 5 in a row for me.  I wasn't expecting to race this too hard since Ironman was just 2 weeks ago, but I figured it waI s worth it just to keep my streak alive at this event and with a marathon coming up in Jan, I should really be bouncing back fairly quickly. The expo was a fair size, given that it is not a marathon or Ironman.  I went on my lunch break, shortly after they opened.  I picked up my bib and then my 5-year schwag.  The 5-year stuff included a knit hat, a 5-year pin and an extra medal.  There was also an extra race bib highlighting my 5 year "Legacy status".  I didn't wear that one, but I did see a few people that had pinned that one to their back.  Maybe I'll do that next time. I was disappointed when I walked over to the table to get my jacket and they said they were out of my size.  Turns out the truck that had my size jackets was late in making the delivery.  I had to go to the information table where they too...

Warning This is a long read, but hey, it was a long race. Preparation I signed up for this race after a lot of thought and discussion with my wife.  Christine has never seen first hand the schedule and effort that goes into preparing for an Ironman so I tried hard to tell her what my time commitment would be if I signed up for this race.   I did my first, and only other Ironman the year I turned 40 so this would be a decade later and the year I turned 50.  My job had a somewhat flexible schedule and no other significant commitments, so it seemed like the stars were in alignment and I decided to go for it. I had already been running a lot and did a trail marathon in February so I thought my running was on track.  I did a couple of open water swims, but never managed to get in the water as regularly as I had planned.  I wasn't too worried about that since my swimming background is pretty strong.  I tried to get 3 bike rides in a week when I was...

Do you travel much? I travel a lot and sometimes people ask me how much I travel.  I'm also a bit of a nerd (or geek depending on your definition) but I'm definitely a very analytical person.  Therefore, when I realized how much travel this job was going to require, I embraced it and get a little excited every time I get an entry stamp in my passport from a country I have not been to before.   For our anniversary last week, my wife gave me this awesome map.  You can scratch off countries you've been to.  I haven't started scratching yet, but am looking forward to getting started. Work 2017 was a little slower on the international travel side of things, but still managed to get to 3 new countries (France, Germany and Switzerland).  This brings me to a total of 25 countries I've been to, but that includes 2 countries I was in for less than a day.  I went to a total of 8 different countries in 2017 and spent a total of 74 days outside t...

Better late than never. I haven't blogged for a while so while this might be the longest I've waited to post a race report, I guess getting restarted with my blogging makes it better late than never. This was the 4th year in a row that I've done this race.  There were a few changes to the race this year, the one that I noticed most, was that the first leg of the race was out and back and I seem to remember that part not being out and back. My running had not been very consistent so I started with the 10:30 mpm pacer and said if I was feeling good I would pick up the pace later in the race.  According to my data we were almost 30 sec fast the first mile, but then settled into about 10:20 miles. I was feeling pretty good so I started picking up the pace at 8 miles (9:58) and a bit more at 9 (8:42) and managed to pick it up a bit more for the last third of a mile (8:21) feeling pretty good.  I guess my training has been better than I thought and I need to start bei...