IM Canada and My Upcoming Marathon

This weekend Ron Crenshaw and I are heading to Penticton, Canada. This trip has 2 purposes as I've said before I'm volunteering for the race and signing up to race next year. It's funny though because I've been planning this since I finished last years race,less than satisfied. So now all of sudden, out of the blue, I'm a little nervous. When you sign up for your first Ironman you're nervous,and you should be. This will be my 4th Ironman.So why am I worried? I have no delusions about my abilities or lack thereof. But I do have goals and so far I have not lived up to my own expectations. As every year passes I lose another step, work harder, to just maintain. So with every opportunity to compete comes to possibility to fail. Now I'm not looking for a pep talk or anything like that. Just the opposite this is the pep talk. The possibility to fail is part of every endeavor. I think the nervousness is my sub conscience telling my conscious mind that I care about this race. Brilliant,right? Not really! I'm spending $600 and a year of my life preparing for this race, so I must care. I was discussing this with the Hobbit and I suggested that perhaps it's just my ego. But he quickly pointed out that if it was just my ego I would have quit this endurance stuff a long time ago because I've been beat by the old, the fat, the blind and even by a guy with one leg. So why this tinge of nervousness? No clue! That's the problem. By signing up for another Ironman I'm committing to a year of unknowns. Unknowns are always scarier than the known quantities. But down the rabbit hole I go. I'll keep you posted as I discover the questions and try to figure out the answers.
And on the other unknown coming up in 4 weeks to be exact, The Skagit Flats Marathon.

Long time, no write

Not that my life has been boring or anything, quite the contrary. A lot has happened since my last post. I just don't seem to make the time to write on here anymore,until now. I just got a confirmation email from the guy in charge of the finish line for Ironman Canada. I will be a catcher at this years race from 4-8:30. This should be pretty fun. Of course I have ulterior motives for volunteering, cuts in the sign up line. But I also believe in giving back. These races would never be as good as they are without the army of people that volunteer. The folks that were out at Yellow Lake last year basically spent their entire shift standing around in the rain/ hail/cold/wind. I just had to ride through there. And for that 7-10 mile stretch I was miserable. They, on the other hand were cheering and smiling and doing everything they could to help motivate me. At the time I couldn't do much more than kind of grunt and nod at them, but I did appreciate their efforts. Since I have worked on the bike course before at CDA I wanted to do something different. I have always loved watching the finishers come in, even if you do not know them. You can see the emotions come pouring out of people. The pride,excitement and relief of completing an Ironman is incompatible. So I think it will be pretty cool to see and share that with the finishers up close.
Next week I head back to Indiana for my 30 year class reunion. 30 years(fuck me!) it should be fun. I just can't believe I'm that old. The pisser is that I'm training for a fall marathon and next weeks long run is 15 miles. 15 miles is already hard but doing it in Indiana with 90 something % humidity is really going to be hard. I've lived away from the humidity for so long that it just knocks the crap out of me. But we will get it done, probably with a bit of a hangover.
Another big milestone has just come to pass. On July 5th Jayne and I celebrated 10 years together. When I say celebrated I mean we looked at each other and said holy crap that went fast. It has been the best 10 years of my life. Her and I have done some pretty cool stuff together and continue to look forward to doing things together. If you know me then you know what a dick I can be, so do I. So I feel very fortunate that Jayne is gracious enough to put up with me. I wouldn't!
Well let's call that a post, a bit random but so what.