21 years ago today

nah, this isn't gonna be one of those mushy 21 years ago today, i fell in love...blah, blah, blah. no, nothing like that. i fell in love way before that. so valentine's day 1989 is the day that i joined a gym. the gym that my boyfriend and future husband, jc had just joined a few weeks earlier. funny thing is at that time, i really hated to work out. i was lazy, lazy, lazy. i know, hard to believe now but it's true, i really was an exercise hater. i'll never forget meeting a friend of jc's who was into natural bodybuilding at bally's. he looked awesome and when i asked him how long he had been working out, his answer was 11 years. i thought to myself, my god, this guy is hardcore, 11 YEARS he's been at this. i never in a million years would have thought that i would be sitting here, typing out that i've been at it too, for 21 years...no breaks, no quitting and starting back up, EVER! it started out with a measly 30 minutes of weights with tons of rest in between sets, then i started adding a few minutes on the stairmaster (do those still exist?) for cardio, then running 3 miles around the track a few nights a week, then 5K's, 10K's, 15K's, duathlons, triathlons, 1/2 marathons and lots and lots of marathons. and in between all of that, i earned my degree in exercise science for Univ. South Florida (go bulls!)...that's how much i love training. it became a huge part of my life and will always be something that defines who i am.

i like to say that the family that trains together, stays together! jc is still my motivator just like when it all started 21 years ago today on the icarian leg press. the picture above is just an old disney half marathon pic that jc is going to kill me for posting because of his silly mustache...which no longer resides on his beautiful face.

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on to the next topic of the day. so after much thought, i have made a decision on which race to do. before i say which one it is, i want to say that i have a hell of a triathlon mentor (who just happens to be the ironman world champ in her age group-so awesome!) who helped me see the light and made my decision an easy one to finally make. It's called the gator half iron and it's on march 21st. if you go here, you can see that this race has gotten great ratings and reviews. part of my decision came from the fact that the more real estate i have to work with, the better i get. i'm definitely much stronger the longer the distance is. that's my strength. the other part of my decision was based on how freakin expensive triathlons have become, so why pay almost the same amount for a sprint that's over in an hour when i can get more bang for my buck doing a half iron distance. the other reason i made this decision is because, i need to focus on long distances since i've got my sights set on the full in october. i know in my heart that i'll be just fine on the bike distance and the half mary distance, and will just focus on doing my best on the swim. the swim is going to be a work in progress for a while, no secret or surprise there. this race will be a great barometer for me to see where i am and what kind of work i have cut out for me the next 6 months or so.

as mills lane (a legendary ex-boxing referee) would say...

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i had a great training week despite having to rearrange a few things here and there because of the colder temps and the pool not opening until later but it was all good. here's my week in review for training:

total running: 32.8 miles, which included my 13.5 mile half mary training run.
total cycling: 121.0 miles
total swimming: 4200.75 meters

i also weight trained twice and got in 2 really good ab workouts. a good week overall even with having worked lots of overtime at work. sometimes i think the more i have on my plate, the more focused i am and tend to make the most of the training time that i have. on the other hand, the more idle time i have on my hands, the more time i waste...that's how it goes.
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i hope everyone had a nice week. next week looks like another cold one here. and by cold, i mean cold enough so that the pool doesn't open til later. how crazy is it that florida is the same temperature as vancouver? there is something really wrong with the universe...scientists, geologists, and climatologists need to get on this right away.

i just had to take a picture of the sky this afternoon after i finished my trail run. not a cloud in sight...crisp blue sky. simply beautiful!

much love and peace out!