A Return To Roots!

As you can tell from the new title to the blog, this year will be a transition year for me. While I will be continuing to compete in bike races, I will be making my return to my start in endurance sports....triathlons. It is something that I have been thinking about for several years but watching the coverage of the 2011 Ironman World Championships in Kona really cemented my decision. Now at the same time, I will continue my cycling races as sitting as a CAT 5 racer is not good enough plus some of those races will help my bike training for triathlons. Plus I still need to be ready for the EPIC event, Tour de Owens 2012!

At this time, I have not figured out a race schedule but will be working on that throughout this week. I would love to return to my hometown and compete in the Lake Lenape Triathlon. It is a race I competed in the first three years of races finishing in 2nd place my last time. My ultimate goal is to make a return to Kona and compete in the Ironman World Championship and redeem myself from my DNF in 1997. The new picture on the blog is from that race in 1997 and was taken around mile 8 of the marathon. At the time of the picture, I was hovering around 40-45th overall and gaining on people before medical issues forced me to drop out.

Now for training, I think I have a good grasp of the bike and the run but that damn swim is something that has always got the best of me! My strengths in the bike and run and pretty much swimming with two anchors behind me always led me to the longer triathlons such as the half-ironman and ironman distance. Now, I just need to motivate myself to get in the pool and get at it. I did take the first step today and purchased some nice swim goggles! I will also need to gear up my run training and start adding track workouts back into the plan. This all gets a start this upcoming week. Today's training was simple but steady windy/cool 35 mile bike ride to start off 2012.

Goals for this week
Bike - 5-6 rides/ 175-200 miles
Run - 3-4 runs/ 20-24 miles (1 workout/1 long run of 10 miles)
Swim - 2 days/ 1-2 miles

Stay tuned for race schedule updates........

TdO '12/Kona!!!