Can you say...

... a bit overwhelmed?

Hi! Remember me? It's Rob... you know... the skinny chicken-shit bastard with the funny face. Yeah! Hi! How are ya?

Ok. Well... its been another week or so since my last post. Are you noticing a general theme? Yeah, I am too. Despite my best efforts... my heart just hasn't been in the writing. In addition to being overwhelmingly busy with coaching and "working", (right PDW?), and training and parenting and husbanding...  things have been, well, they've been... a bit off for our family. We're having some growing pains. Yeah. Everyone, every family, every marriage goes through it... the test is, do you have the balls to stay in, endure the pain, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and experience the entire gamut of human emotion to get to the other side? Look at the statistics. Most don't have the balls. I, however, happen to have HUGE ones.

ONWARD!

Oh. Wait. You know what is a GREAT word? "Dolt".  Look it up... its pretty cool.

Ok. SO! Training has been a bit off. Well, at least my run has been. To make an extremely long and boring story short... I have a stress-fracture in my left foot. Well... at least I think. The problem with stress-fractures is that you really can't confirm one until there are new calcium deposits forming on the fracture to show up on x-ray. These deposits take roughly 4 to 6 weeks to form. SO... I am now relegated to "aqua jogging" for the rest of the year! YAY! Look OUT old ladys! I'm TOTALLY going to dominate you in the pool! Just a quick note... the stress-fracture, if that's what it is, was NOT a result of overtraining! It was a result of my own stupidity... which I'm not going to share. All I'm saying is, if you're going to play paintball with 12 year-olds... wear supportive shoes. Coach Liz has effectively calmed me down and has assured me that if I'm disciplined in the pool... my run will not suffer.  

Other than that... my training has been going really really well.  Clearwater is less than 6 weeks away!  Can you believe it?  I can!  I'm SO ready to go have some FUN at this race!  Anyone out there going to surprise me by showing up at the finish line... with a HUGE smile... arms held wide to catch me?  What a nice surprise that would be!

My swim is... well... its my swim.  I'm not necessarily getting any faster... or maybe I am... I dunno.  What I do know is that my endurance in the pool has improved quite a bit.  My lats actually bulge.  I'm confident that if things go well... I'll put together a 30 min swim and come out of the water ready to fight on the bike. 

I'm REALLY happy with where my bike is right now.  I went out on a ride this last Sunday that was easily on my top 10 list of most fun/satisfying rides of the year.  It was one of those amazingly beautiful Fall afternoons in the Pacific Northwest.  You know the ones... the light... the temp... everything was gorgeous.  In the middle of this ride I had 2 back to back 20 min TT's with a 2 min spin in between.  I decided that I was not going to look at my wattage after the first 5 min.  I had a number that I wanted to hit... and maintain... but I was not going to obsessively check my wattage... I was going to ride... just f'ing go... ya know.  The shortened version is that I was 36 watts above where I wanted to be in the first TT and I was 56 watts above where I wanted to be in the second.  Yeah.  It's ON!

A note on friendship and love:  Those that you hold close to your heart.  Those that you love and cherish and respect and adore and are completely enamored with.  Those are the one's that, while they may be far from you in a physical sense, they are closer to you than you could ever imagine.  Just remember.  Don't forget that.  That kind of love endures... always.  Things may eb and flow... but that is the way life works...

Whew.  Whoosh.  Man.  

Thanks for reading.  I truly hope that you're all happy, healthy, and whole.

Breathe...