60,000 Miles



The little man and me getting in some push ups


That's how far I've determined an athlete can go before things start going wrong with his/her body. Now 60,000 miles seems like a really long way, and if you are an average person who runs a couple times a week then yeah it is. However for a triathele it could only be a few good years of hard training and racing before the body starts to revolt and lets you know that your days training like this are numbered. I look back at my athletic career and I've had some really good results for an average age grouper, I didn't start doing triathlons until I was about 28 years old and I didn't start Ironman training until I was 32. So I've had 10-12 years of tough training and racing and although I like to think I'm always getting faster and better at some point things start to catch up with you.

The Achilles injury in 2012 was the really tough one to overcome and although I bounced back fairly well, after that I could not train the same way I used to and I had to think of new ways to train that would allow me more time to recover but still keep my fitness really high. I guess you could say I've tried to go back to my roots, in University I did a lot of weights and a little running. I didn't know how to swim and rarely biked but I enjoyed being in the gym and hitting the weights hard for 2-3 hours some days. I haven't gone to that extreme but I'm realizing that naturally losing 2% muscle mass every year for 10 years will catch up with you and you are bound to get injured if you don't do some lifting on a regular basis. I still thoroughly enjoy swim-bike-run and it still dominates most of my activity time but with Ryder now that activity time is limited. I try to have him around when I workout but he gets bored really quickly so I have to be quick with my workouts and limit it to 20-40 minutes. It's a great feeling thinking about being active and healthy with him but I just hope this old body will stay strong and fit well into the future. I've definitely passed my 60,000 mile limit but I'm doing everything I can to keep pushing back that barrier and one day train and race with my son, he's just started standing on his own so the first step by himself is coming very soon.