Happy New Year!!

Hey all

Been awhile again since I posted. I have no excuse really, there is stuff to talk about right? Of course there is!! Christmas, New Years, new job, no training. Well I'm back training now, things are going well too.

First off Christmas, Lisa and I drove to Manitoba to visit my family. Who knows if she'll want to go again since we did hit some blowing snow in the last hour heading that way. Then coming home we hit a big blizzard in SASK(thanks Jenna for sending that our way) It was also really freezing. The first part there was no wind and the snow was coming down and staying on the road making it impossible to see the lines. Then the wind came and the visibility went down, but at least the road was mostly clear. Later on we got ice too. It was weird driving through all of that in phases, amongst super cold wind chill too. I had to alternate the heat in the car from feet/defrost to just defrost. The plain defrost is the only thing that could keep the windshield from freezing over, all while the inside of the car had to be in the neighborhood of 30+ degrees. I was sweating like crazy!!! So yeah Lisa got a taste of a "real" winter drive Canadian style. We'll see if she wants to ever head out east again. :P

Training grinded to a halt during the Christmas holidays. I brought running and swimming stuff to Manitoba and planned on going to the gym and pool to do some of both, but it didn't happen. Most of the time it was chilly outside and I just felt like stayin at home and not worrying about workouts. So I did just that, ate and drank till my hearts(and my tummys) content. I can't remember how many times I went to bed hurting cause I ate too much. Why does one do that? Why can't I just stop before it starts to hurt? Anyways I didn't beat myself up over not training, this year I made up my mind to enjoy the holidays, then come home and get to work so to speak.

I started my new job on Jan 5th. I enjoy it, the people are great. The job is a lil boring at first, but I expected that. Lots to learn, at least the people in my dept. are helpful. Yesterday I made my first big mistake. Oh well I have to redo a bunch of it today. My co-worker says everyone's done it before and I shouldn't let it bother me. I won't get into what I did, cause it's hard to explain. Seems like a great place here and I'm enjoying coming to work and being part of a team again.

So as soon as we got back from the trip I started up with the training. The first workouts back are always tough aren't they? It seems like you're starting over again, it turns out that I gained a bit of weight too, YIKES!! hee hee oh well time to start eating better too. I think I managed a run or a bike most days in the first week and one swim? I'll have to start recording that stuff again. This week starting last friday has been awesome. I decided to jump start the training again. I wouldn't do this normally except that training was going fairly well before the holidays so I figure I'm behind, I need to get going again. Friday, Sat, and Sun I did 6 workouts friday swim/run, sat brick(my first of the year), sun swim/ride. I'm trying to keep my run and bike at 2 on 1 off type thing while building up a base. Also, I was gonna start back with my coach, but that isn't going to happen till Feb. I want to get some fitness going before I start back with him. I also had 3 swims in 7 days. I swam wed,fri,sun, they got progressively better. I always swim better with only one day off inbetween.

So here I am at today, I think I'll run and do a short bike. I rode yesterday for 1:15. A huge breakthrough, I find it so hard to get past the 1 hour mark. I think it's mostly mental. I will try to change that over the winter. I want to hit the ground running(riding) when spring hits. I entered the splash and gasp as well as the police half. So we'll see some of you at those races, I hope it'll be warmer at the splash an gasp. I look forward to another great year of improvement. I keep bugging lisa about a possible Hawaii trip in Oct. :) Maybe this year I'll be close. I really want to go sub 10, it'll be a big jump, but I know I can do it!!! As Paul Harvey says, "now you have the rest of the story". Cheers,

Darryl