Friday, August 27, 2010

New Challenges, Kind Words, and a shout out to Tyler Wright

Yesterday, I started laying out the next years goals. I'd like to share some of that feedback.

From my wife: (on her facebook account) "Four Days after our HIM, Benny said the 'I' word.". Because she's waiting on a knee exam, she's obviously a little less enthusiastic than her normal competitive self. But she later sent me a text message saying "I'm starting to warm up to the idea of doing *Race name withheld until we learn the date in a few weeks*".

From my mother: "That is too far. 140.6 miles is just too far. I don't want you having a heart attack on the course". I explained to her that I'll be training for about a year, and that we'll potentially be doing a race that will be close enough to spend time with them. "You can't spend time with me if you're dead".

So, now that I've started exploring what we're going to do next and how we're going to train to get there, the next step was to stop laying around and at least try to do a little physical activity. Last night, I decided to take the bike to my Bikes not Bombs instructor class. It's only a few miles away on mostly flat city streets and it's in a well lit area.

The total climbing for this ride is probably about 15 feet. And yet every time the road went up, my legs complained. What wouldn't have even have seemed like a speed bump during the race is just flat taking my legs out right now. It took me about 30 minutes to go the 3 miles to the shop. Some of that was me getting lost, but the rest of it was my legs having no juice. The way home was a little better as it goes mostly downhill, but I still wasn't close to 100%.  I'm going to ride over there again tonight, because I feel like doing a little bit each day will help things along.

On to another subject. To those of you who read my race day emotional outpouring thank you post, you know how much all the kindness has meant to me. I've had a real outpouring of congratulations from family, friends, and mostly complete strangers as well. Not all of it is here on the blog, but a lot of it is. And I wanted to take this time to say thanks again, and not only are your comments always welcome, but as I look to tackle new challenges, your input will definitely be even more appreciated as I start trying to figure out what the next year will look like.

Finally, Sunday is the Ironman Canada race. It's finally time for Team Tyler to tear it up! 140.6 of prime Canadian soil (and water) will be traversed all in the name of charity. In his recent daily emails to supporters, Tyler has mentioned his first bike crash (in the week before the race no less), long hours of training (and some long massages to follow them), and even getting down to his lowest weight in over 10 years. Now, he's gone through packet pickup and is at the end of his taper, with race day just a couple days away. I'll be at Cranberry cheering for our teammates, but I'll have my Nexus One pointed at the Ironman Live site, getting updates on Tyler's progress.

If you haven't already donated folks, now's the time.

8 comments:

  1. Love your mom's comments. Reminds me of what my mom says when I bring up what she thinks is crazy, new ideas. Glad the recovery is going pretty well.

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  2. Barb -

    She's funny. She was serious about the heart attack stuff, which just made it funnier because it's just not going to happen. I've done races where I've been less prepared than this one and survived them all. Yes, the next one is the longest, but that's the way it always is, and I'm going to be more prepared for this one than any of the previous ones.

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  3. I'm glad that you're the one with the crazy idea and not me! Good luck, thats much to long of a distance for me, I want to have fun with my training, hopefully you will!

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  4. One other thing. If you or anyone you know are looking for an amazing tri bike, have them check this one out. My Dad and I just haven't ridden it enough to really consider keeping it around.
    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110579414572&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

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  5. Derek - you could totally do it. I'm going to make training really fun this year. Even training for a marathon. Because I'm not just training for races, but for a healthy body and life.

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  6. Oh, that bike is awesome. It's WAY out of my league price and performance wise, but I'm sure you'll find someone to buy it.

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  7. I hope your tracker watching is going good. I've got a friend doing Louisville. I just checked on my buddy and he did great in the swim and is averaging about 20 mph on the bike. Go Ironman competitors!

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  8. Derek - the site was down a lot, so it went well until the site started going down.

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