Month: January 2016

Year in Review – 2015

JDD2T

I know going outside of your comfort zone is a scary thing to do. Within it, you know what to expect, what’s going to happen, and feel like you can contro things. But if you’re willing to take the chances, take calculated risks and be uncomfortable, you’ll get far more than you could ever expect.

In a nutshell, my 2015 exploded and was amazing because I went out of the comfort zone. This is what my entire 2015 was supposed to be
:
Shamrock Shuffle, BTN Big 10K, Naperville Sprint Triathlon
Trips to WI and MI

This is what my 2015 ended up being:
Run As One, Shamrock Shuffle, Celebrate Differences 5K, Sly Fox 10K, Dare2Tri Tri It Tri, Naperville Sprint Triathlon, Batavia Half Marathon, ITU World Triathlon Grand Finale, Fraidy Cat 10K, Team RWB San Diego 5K, Team RWB KC 5K

Rock climbing for the first time

Trips to WI, MI, NY (including a drive back west) & KC

Introduction to the VI community, Team RWB and Dare2Tri

Volunteer opportunities with Reverb (which I had to decline due to great aunt’s passing)

Dare2Tri PT Camp

Swim classes as part of Tri training

Oh, and all of the media coverage, which started with a simple interview and grew into a huge snowball. Please see the link above for all of the links.

Throughout the year, my coaches have pushed me, not just to get to what I need for the race(s), but to continue going further. I am truly grateful to all of them, although I’m sometimes uncomfortable during the workouts. But no pain, no gain — and you don’t get better by being comfortable.

Through the introductions to Team RWB (which started because of my reading of rules), I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people – both former service members and civilians. And the introduction to Dare2Tri (which started because it’s Executive Director was the Shamrock Shuffle AWD coordinator), gave me opportunities that I didn’t even know existed. Not just from the raining or race aspects, but more from the human aspect. Getting to meet, interact with, and spend the weekend with the group changed my thinking on many things. For more on that, please see the Dare2Tri Camp blog here

While 2015 was an amazing year, I’m looking forward to 2016! I’ve got 22 events planned, along with several personal trips. I will share the event schedule once everything’s finalized. The first race with be the Life Time Indoor Tri this coming Sunday in Romeoville.

The rest of the month – December 2015

JDD2T

Between work, training and 5A swim classes, I fell behind on blog entries after December 12th. I considered doing individual entries for each, but I then decided one long entry would be easier to deal with than 19 short ones. So here goes…

The weekend of December 12th, I joined a local gym. I know the Chicago winter hasn’t gotten bad. BUT I knew it would at some point soon. I also needed the ability to get bike workouts in before the spring. The first weekend there, I succeeded in getting about 6 hours on the bike in. I also had an issue with the treadmills which taught me that I need to stay away from them unless I’m with someone else.

The following week consited of 3 swim workouts (including a double dip thanks to a friend letting me be a guest at their club), 3 hours on the bike and a very long day of running on that Saturday.

The following week started off with the normal swim sessions, along with an extra one (guest of my parents at their club). Then I had to pay for Christmas Eve on the bike. Every year, one of my aunts throws an amazing party and I typically ingest 2 days worth of calories (or more) in less than 6 hours.

So to pay for all of that, I spent a total of 9 1/2 hours on a stationary bike from December 25th – 27th. Let’s just leave it at that I found out very quickly that I need to invest in a nice pair of bike shorts before I try to do the planned Century in September 2016.

The final week of December started out with a normal set of swim workouts, and ended with a very hard run session. The swim session in the morning was the longest one I’ve done, and I didn’t realize how tight my body was. So needless to say, the run was a real challenge as my body kept getting tight. The post-session stretching was more painful than it has been in the past — there were a couple of times that I saw spots from the pain. But nothing’s torn, broken or hurt.

Because of that issue Wednesday night, I decided to make NYE a rest day. I had originally planned to go to the gym and ride the bike for a few hours after work. Instead, I spent the night with a good beer and relaxing.