Love the Hurt: Weekend in the Mountains

Just outside our room looking out onto Main St.

So Amy and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary up in Julian over the weekend and as much as I love my kids, I sure love spending quality time with my wife. Often parents get it backwards and love their kids over their spouse and often spend more time with their kids -ignoring the most important person! For those of you that don't have kids yet, remember this - It's the secret to a wonderful marriage AND being a great parent! We stayed up in a bed and breakfast and it ended up being a great time. Great company, beautiful weather, great food and great wine (and beer). I was still able to get in some good quality training time last week and my fitness continues to improve. It included a 10 mile hilly run up in the mountains and then a 4 hr/70 mile ride - which used to be pretty brutal, but now I'm able to get through them with plenty of power and energy towards the end.

After just finishing up a hilly 10 miler

One thing I have noticed over the past few weeks is my weight loss. When I initially lost the 40 pounds (when I started working out again) I kinda just stayed stagnate after that. Then once I started focusing on the 70.3 distance and eating better, I've noticed myself withering away! I've lost another 10 pounds over the past two months and I'm down to 133 pounds now. I'm 5'9, so that's pretty skinny! When I was running competitively and putting in 80-100 miles/week I was always around the 128-132 mark -so I'm flirting with that same weight again. Although it's great for running (and climbing on the bike), I do need to start incorporating a little more strength training into my routine so I can last for these 3-4 hour races. Speaking of racing, it all starts this weekend in Phoenix. After racing pretty much every single month last year, and taking December off -I'm chomping at the bit to race. Besides a few missed days here and there from sickness this past month, my training has been flawless. I think its no coincidence that I've been injury free since training with James. I was obviously going too hard, too often. I've been able to stay consistent with training and just nailing each workout.

The Rock & Roll Arizona course is fast and flat so my goal pace is going to be 5:40-45 which will get me a finishing time of 1:14-1:15. It's not going to be easy though - I have a pretty tough week of training ahead of me and will definitely not be fresh come race day. Either way, I'm going for the pace and will just try to tough it out. I'm excited to try out some new mental techniques that I've been practicing lately with a lot of success. I'll share more about this in another post.

You can track me race day at this LINK. My race starts at 7:30am (6:30 CA time).

Wish me luck! Now -some photos from the weekend: