Happy New Year

The New Year is always a great time to reflect on the past year and see what went well and what you feel like you could have done better. It's also a great time to set some new year's goals and 2013 is no exception. Of any year I know this year is going to bring the most change to our lives, our baby boy is about a month from joining us and we're both really, really excited to have him in our modest little family. Amber is getting incredibly uncomfortable and is ready to be done with pregnancy, she's hurting all the time and he's starting to become very strong! Yes he has his daddy's genes so the hyperactivity has started already- he's going to need a lot of sports growing up.

As for me I think the biggest realization I had during 2012 was that I can't train the way I used to. Going hard all the time will work really well for a short period of time (2-5 years) but if I want to keep racing into my 40s then I need to have an off-season, a build, and a peak. So after recovering from an injury for 8 months I feel sufficiently 'de-trained' and I'm ready to start building again. The thing I'm realizing about me is that I have to be going full bore or nothing at all, so I'm trying to find that middle ground where I feel like I'm training enough but not so much that I'm doing damage. I started the year with an easy 50 minute run- in the past I would have felt like that isn't sufficient enough for Ironman training but part of the process is slowly building back while staying healthy and injury free. I just got over one of the worst flu's I've had in about 5 years during Christmas so I'm giving myself a little leeway to build slowly and keep everything in zone 2. A few of us had our VO2 max tested in December so I've nailed down my training zones and it's just a matter of staying in the 'base building' zone for a couple months while I create some endurance again.  

2013 is going to be challenging but my primary focus is on creating a great environment for our baby to grow up and secondary is Ironman Cour D'Alene and Ironman Calgary 70.3. If I can race well and stay injury free then this year will be a tremendous success. Fortunately I have my greatest supporter Amber to help me and we'll be there for each other just like we have been every other year.