Well, I've been in a blogging rut ever since I finished my Ironman. I suppose I've had a few things going on in my life lately that have been occupying my time, but still, I've pretty much abandoned my blog. See, I've worked on my IMTX race report here and there, but never really finished it because I wanted to include pics. It took a while to gather the pics from my dad and bro-in-law and then upload them to my mac (which has a full hard drive hence I can't really upload any more pics until I clean it up). But I have a bunch of other things going on in my life that are much higher priority than cleaning off my computer's hard drive. I'm slightly OCD and want to post things sequentially, and since I haven't finished my race report didn't really want to post anything else until I got that done...and so I've abdicated my blog. Well, no more...
So let's catch up...
I was absolutely thrilled with my first Ironman and couldn't believe I nailed my 12 hour goal. Since I spent so much time, effort, and energy on getting ready for that race, I pretty much committed the next 2 months (June/July) to Rachel and getting ready for our first baby. On July 11, our little joy decided to make an early entrance and blessed us tremendously! Life as a dad has been absolutely amazing, but I won't act like it's been all fun and games...it's had it's challenges. The first couple months that Oliva has been here I pretty much had no triathlon/running aspirations other than to just do enough working out to stay sane. My main focus has been trying to be the dad that God wants me to be...of course I keep falling short, but such is life. I learn and I try to do better next time. Olivia's been very patient with me learning how to change her diapers and clothes, feed her bottles, burp her. She even tolerates my singing to her (and forgetting most the words to children's songs). I've really gotten pretty awesome at making duck and monkey sounds for her...sometimes I get a little carried away when I get her to laugh and end up scaring her...like last night. Anyway, it's been a great couple of months with her and Rachel and I can't wait to see each new thing that she learns how to do. Rachel might be the best mom I've ever seen...besides my mom of course. She's been absolutely amazing with Olivia and has been good at coaching me along on how to care for a baby.
Choosing sports...
Workout wise I was very hesitant to make any official plans or goals until I could see how difficult it would be to consistently get workouts in with a newborn at home. I decided to go for efficiency and focus on running since I can literally walk out the door and get a solid workout in under an hour. Biking just takes to long to get all the gear ready and then to get a good workout you have to invest a lot of time. Swimming is probably the most efficient overall workout, but I have to go to a pool for that making it not as accessible. I've really developed a love for trail running. Really, I've always loved trails and being outdoors in nature so that's no surprise. Plus, I kind of have a legacy to carry on!
Arkansas Traveler 100...
My friend Jacob is doing his first 100 miler trail run in October and honored me in asking if I was interested in crewing for him. I was ecstatic to support him in such a big endeavor for him and excited for the opportunity. I know all along Jacob was just using me to get closer to my dad (who is an ultra running machine). Next thing I know, I'm now supposed to crew and pace Jacob for somewhere between 17-33 miles and my dad is going to crew! Of course I'm only kidding. This should make for an awesome weekend in October when we get Jacob to the finish line in <24hrs time at his first hundred miler.
Rockledge Rumble...
I decided to make my entrance to trail racing at a local race put on by NTTR (North Texas Trail Runners) in November. It's at Northshore trail on Lake Grapevine and I entered the 30K race. I'm just looking to finish and get a taste for trail running more than being competitive, so we'll see how this goes.
New Years Double Marathon...
I secretly hoped I'd have enough time to train for a marathon but really wasn't sure if it would be a reality with a newborn. I decided to give a training plan a try for a few weeks and see how it went before committing. After going fairly well, I decided to do the White Rock Marathon. After another week of pondering before I signed up, I came across another Marathon called the New Year's Double in Allen. It's 15 minutes from my house, less than half the price, and is a ~6.5mile out/back course so Rachel could easily spectate instead of fighting the thousands of people in Fair Park to maybe see me once during the race! I signed up this week and training is in full swing.
Work...
In August I began a new position at work. I'm part of a technical rotation program where I change jobs every 6 months into different key areas of DLP. I'm 1 year into the 3 year program now and it is an awesome experience. Only hard thing is I'm the new guy every 6 months and feel like I don't know what I'm doing because there's a new learning curve to get over with each job.
House...
In addition to spending the last few months before Olivia was born getting the house ready for a baby and preparing the nursery, we had our first major problem with our home. We had a water leak from our air conditioner condensation line (in the attic) which trickled down an interior wall and seeped onto our wood floors, master bathroom walls and cabinets, and master closet walls and carpet. Ughh, what a hassle. Fortunately, our homeowner's insurance has been awesome through it all (highly recommend State Farm). Anyway, since we were only 3 weeks away from the due date when this all happened, we scrambled to get things patched up and basically band-aided the damages until we could get used to having a newborn. This week we decided to start tackling all the repairs and also do a little remodeling while we are at it. So, we are replacing our wood floors, redoing some sheetrock, lots of texturing/painting, and updating our master bath all at the same time. I'm getting to learn a lot about DIY home improvement jobs though so that's kind of cool.
I guess that's all for now. I'll leave you with this horrible old country song from the 90's that came to mind as I was writing this blog...
So let's catch up...
I was absolutely thrilled with my first Ironman and couldn't believe I nailed my 12 hour goal. Since I spent so much time, effort, and energy on getting ready for that race, I pretty much committed the next 2 months (June/July) to Rachel and getting ready for our first baby. On July 11, our little joy decided to make an early entrance and blessed us tremendously! Life as a dad has been absolutely amazing, but I won't act like it's been all fun and games...it's had it's challenges. The first couple months that Oliva has been here I pretty much had no triathlon/running aspirations other than to just do enough working out to stay sane. My main focus has been trying to be the dad that God wants me to be...of course I keep falling short, but such is life. I learn and I try to do better next time. Olivia's been very patient with me learning how to change her diapers and clothes, feed her bottles, burp her. She even tolerates my singing to her (and forgetting most the words to children's songs). I've really gotten pretty awesome at making duck and monkey sounds for her...sometimes I get a little carried away when I get her to laugh and end up scaring her...like last night. Anyway, it's been a great couple of months with her and Rachel and I can't wait to see each new thing that she learns how to do. Rachel might be the best mom I've ever seen...besides my mom of course. She's been absolutely amazing with Olivia and has been good at coaching me along on how to care for a baby.
Choosing sports...
Workout wise I was very hesitant to make any official plans or goals until I could see how difficult it would be to consistently get workouts in with a newborn at home. I decided to go for efficiency and focus on running since I can literally walk out the door and get a solid workout in under an hour. Biking just takes to long to get all the gear ready and then to get a good workout you have to invest a lot of time. Swimming is probably the most efficient overall workout, but I have to go to a pool for that making it not as accessible. I've really developed a love for trail running. Really, I've always loved trails and being outdoors in nature so that's no surprise. Plus, I kind of have a legacy to carry on!
Arkansas Traveler 100...
My friend Jacob is doing his first 100 miler trail run in October and honored me in asking if I was interested in crewing for him. I was ecstatic to support him in such a big endeavor for him and excited for the opportunity. I know all along Jacob was just using me to get closer to my dad (who is an ultra running machine). Next thing I know, I'm now supposed to crew and pace Jacob for somewhere between 17-33 miles and my dad is going to crew! Of course I'm only kidding. This should make for an awesome weekend in October when we get Jacob to the finish line in <24hrs time at his first hundred miler.
Rockledge Rumble...
I decided to make my entrance to trail racing at a local race put on by NTTR (North Texas Trail Runners) in November. It's at Northshore trail on Lake Grapevine and I entered the 30K race. I'm just looking to finish and get a taste for trail running more than being competitive, so we'll see how this goes.
New Years Double Marathon...
I secretly hoped I'd have enough time to train for a marathon but really wasn't sure if it would be a reality with a newborn. I decided to give a training plan a try for a few weeks and see how it went before committing. After going fairly well, I decided to do the White Rock Marathon. After another week of pondering before I signed up, I came across another Marathon called the New Year's Double in Allen. It's 15 minutes from my house, less than half the price, and is a ~6.5mile out/back course so Rachel could easily spectate instead of fighting the thousands of people in Fair Park to maybe see me once during the race! I signed up this week and training is in full swing.
Work...
In August I began a new position at work. I'm part of a technical rotation program where I change jobs every 6 months into different key areas of DLP. I'm 1 year into the 3 year program now and it is an awesome experience. Only hard thing is I'm the new guy every 6 months and feel like I don't know what I'm doing because there's a new learning curve to get over with each job.
House...
In addition to spending the last few months before Olivia was born getting the house ready for a baby and preparing the nursery, we had our first major problem with our home. We had a water leak from our air conditioner condensation line (in the attic) which trickled down an interior wall and seeped onto our wood floors, master bathroom walls and cabinets, and master closet walls and carpet. Ughh, what a hassle. Fortunately, our homeowner's insurance has been awesome through it all (highly recommend State Farm). Anyway, since we were only 3 weeks away from the due date when this all happened, we scrambled to get things patched up and basically band-aided the damages until we could get used to having a newborn. This week we decided to start tackling all the repairs and also do a little remodeling while we are at it. So, we are replacing our wood floors, redoing some sheetrock, lots of texturing/painting, and updating our master bath all at the same time. I'm getting to learn a lot about DIY home improvement jobs though so that's kind of cool.
I guess that's all for now. I'll leave you with this horrible old country song from the 90's that came to mind as I was writing this blog...
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