Happy Anniversary!

Hi, my name is Ben.

I'm STILL what you'd call... fat.

I'm 6'2" and as of this morning weigh in at 318.4 pounds. It's a mere 8 I'm still built like an offensive lineman, but now with a bit more muscle under the fat. And I'm guessing I could outrun most of those big fellas in a 100 yard dash now too.

When I started this blog 1 year ago today, my goal was simple: I wanted to use the blog to be my journal, my mirror, the place I go to celebrate the good, and persevere through the bad. I wasn't sure if anyone would read it , and at first I didn't care. But as someone who has considered myself a writer since I was around 9 or 10, the idea of an audience was really appealing.

And boy did I luck out there. Early last week, we passed over 10,000 unique visits, and we're closing in on 20,000 pages viewed. Those numbers just blow my mind. And while sometimes you have to sacrifice quality for quantity, that's certainly not the case here. I have been blessed to have some of the most amazing readers who have found the perfect balance of encouragement and keeping me honest in those times when I'm making excuses. So, thanks!

While the weight loss goal is still a work in progress, there has been a lot of success. I finished Timberman, which was the big goal for the year. I got stronger and faster on the bike and in the water, and I got experience at longer races. I learned a lot, and saw that I really could improve with hard work. Plus, I met a ton of great people both in person and over the web. On top of that, they just added Club Nationals to the USAT Rankings, and it brought my score up to a 46.54, which is a 4 point improvement over last season. Considering how much more difficult this years schedule was, I'm really proud of that.

If you thought the first year was a yawnfest exciting. the second year is going to be even better. A half-ironman in june with MASSIVE climbs. An Ironman in September, back in Ohio. Oh, and did I mention we're doing the Ironman for charity? Yep, more details on that in the next couple weeks as Rev3 gets the details ironed out.

Notes:

- I ran tonight, but didnt get past the end of the first mile. I didn't have the legs to do the rest of the 25 minutes, so I turned around and walked back. I learned earlier this year that on the nights you don't have it, it's best not to push it. I did put in a sub-13 minute mile, so I'm pretty happy with that. A year ago there's no way I could have run that.

- USAT Northeast region announced the state and regional championships. The Regional will be in June at Quassy. and the Massachusetts state championship will be at the Greenfield Lightlife triathlon in early August. Both races are Olympic distance, so we'll try to fit at least one of those in. It's good that we didn't sign up for the half at Quassy because we wouldn't be able to do regionals otherwise. I'll have 2011 schedule laid out this week.