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.