Summer and next year...

Wow, seriously the summer is almost over??? Man that was fast.

Each day I would tell myself to write but then would be so tired from training and the daily operations and running of TBC that I would say “ahh, tomorrow will be just as good”. So, a few months later and I guess it is finally tomorrow. LOL

August was an amazing month. I had my athlete Ben Kanute take 2nd Overall at Junior Nationals, have had 4 athletes successfully finish Ironman with 4 PR’s. One of which was Steve Maves who at 51 years old went 27th OVERALL at IMLOU. Not bad for an “on call” doctor who has weekly scheduling issues. I cannot wait to see him in Kona along with my other 2 athletes I have going this year. But first is Vegas in 5 days…gulp

Earlier in the season I had high goals for Vegas 70.3. I still do, but a couple weeks back came to a cross roads with my training. I had what was possibly a very serious season ending illness and had to shut things down for the better part of a week. With an amazing amount of stress and anxiety behind be thanks to the help of Keith (a great friend and doctor) and some other close friends who happen to be docs as well we were able to discover the cause for all the issues. Blood clots, while scary and painful, but limited to superficial veins meant if I was able to deal with the pain, I could continue on without too much risk for serious side effects.

I decided Kona was going to be my main focus and had to play some catch up with that. I want to put myself in a good position to have a solid race there and hopefully improve either on my time and or place of last year’s 9:16, 82nd Overall. In doing so I did a lot of volume and training which I am hoping will also help me in Vegas as the course there will be tough, but we will see.

Next year I am considering racing as an Elite to see what that experience would be like so this being most likely my last Kona for awhile I am happy with the choice to focus on that. I have had several great showings this year and while I will always have to work on my running have been able to swim and bike solid even from the last wave in many races and think I can be in the mix for a lot of races which would be cool. Additionally I think it is a cool idea that I started as an overweight guy who could not run 1.5 miles to join the Marines in 1997 and will possibly come full circle to be able to say I achieved Elite status. I would also be lying that the main driver is I really do not know what I want to do next year and this at least buys me time to sign up for races later. That alone is a luxury I would to enjoy for at least 1 year.

Still deciding..