Let me start by apoligizing for the poor updating of my website. I don’t blog often. I would rather spend the time with my family or working hard on the planning I do for the athletes I get to work with. From a business perspective I know it is important, but I have had a great referral base the past several years and have not needed to spend a lot of time advertising for clients. But today I felt a spark to update my webpage and talk about the year to come.
The inspiration today came from my registration for Challenge Penticton. I had originally planned on focusing on short course in 2013, with the goal of going to Nationals. When it was announced that Nationals will be in Milwaukee, I had a bit of a let down as I was hoping for a West Coast location. Then I received an email from my friends at www.buduracing.com that their Mt Rainier Duathlon would be hosting Long Course Du Nationals in April 2013. That would satisfy my National Championship urge, but what to do with the remainder of the season?
I have been tossing around the idea of competing in another Iron Distance event the past 2 years. I just could never quite pull the trigger and sign up. My last Iron Distance race was in 2005, where I had a great debut at the distance and achieved a top 10 in a smaller regional race. I was to do Ironman Coeur d’Alene in 2007, but a non-training related back injury 2 weeks out from raceday led to a DNS. Last season I had my healthiest and and fastest year of my 10 year triathlon career at 40 years old, both at Half Iron and short course distances. I have also had the pleasure of working with some very inspirational athletes the past few years, many which will be doing Iron races this coming year. With all this in my mind, I found myself perusing the Challenge Penticton website often the past few weeks. I have always wanted to race at Ironman Canada, climb Richtor pass, swim in Lake Okanogan. When Penticton announced that the race was changing hands, I was first saddened that I may have missed my chance to race in one of my favorite parts of North America. But I have heard great things of the Challenge group, and when I saw that the course was going to be the same, I had this burning in the back of my mind that this coming year just made sense. I would get to experience Challenge Penticton’s debut while training alongside many of my athletes as they build for their summer Ironman races.
The goal still will be the same, prioritize my family above my training always, and make my training as ultra-efficient to maximize my fitness and ability to race well on the fewest hours possible. I hope to make this journey as fun and enjoyable for my family as it will be for myself. I am excited to take on this new endeavor, and vow to return here more often this coming year to update the progress of the awesome athletes I have the pleasure to work with and my own status in returning to race 140.6miles.
