A New Year, New Challenges

A New Year

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 43rd birthday and with the exception of birthdays 1-8, 21, 30(interesting story there)and 40...I like to keep them very low key. As I do every year around my birthday, I like to reflect on the last year, the highlights, the low lights and everything in between. This last year was loaded with highlights and very few low lights. First of all, I celebrated my 15th year of marriage, I ran my first marathon(Race Report), I completed 3 triathlons in one season, ran a half marathon dressed as Elvis with my running partner(Race Report), paced friends to new PR's, made new friends and strengthened relationships with old friends. All in all...it was a very good year and a lot of it is thanks to running/triathlons. Five years ago, I could never imagine running a marathon, let alone a 5K and I didn't even know what triathlon was all about. I would have never imagined doing what I did at 12:46am on November 1, 2010...

New Challenges

Over the last few months, I have been contemplating my 2011 race schedule and decided to step it up a notch. If everything goes as planned, I will run the LA Marathon once again in March, the Disneyland Half marathon in September, and hopefully, fingers crossed, the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, DC in late October. After reading Linda's and Penny's MCM race reports, I really want to do this race...badly. Oh yeah...getting back to November 1, 2010...I took what I consider to be the biggest step of my triathlon/running life....I signed up (and got into) the Vineman 70.3 (1/2 Ironman) race on July 17, 2011. I must admit that I am a bit scared...but give me 8 months to prepare and I will be ready. Training for 2 marathons and a 1/2 Ironman should give me plenty to write about. Another goal for 2011 is to drop below 200 lbs. I have been fluctuating between 202 and 210 for the last year and I must focus to get below 200 lbs and stay there.

I want to say "Thank You" to all of you that made my 43rd year...a fantastic year.