The Triathlon Rx

I just submitted a ten page research paper. In Spanish. Ay Dios mío…

But that does confirm that: yes, I am still here. Possibly buried under a stack of PubMed articles and lab reports, but here none the less. I have had pretty much zero guilt or shame in admitting that the blog has been at the very bottom of “the list” this semester… that is until my amiga Betsy over at Earning My M-Dot called me out in one of her posts for slacking. And then Susan, my long lost friend in NY emailed me saying she was coming to Minneapolis and where the truck was my blog?

Guilt is a powerful emotion. Guilt about skipping that long ride because you were SPENT from being at the office till way late the night before. Guilt about not being cleared to play in your stupid 1-credit tennis class, when your doctor is clearing you to run as much as you please. (You’re a LINEAR athlete!! Don’t risk it for something so small!) Guilt that the Twins just lost 10-5 and yes I did just snap on someone unintentionally. (Oh… guilt that this was written last week and never hit publish? Twins won their last two games BTW.) Guilt that yes, that is a Costco sized box of Starbursts in my drawer. (Cheap, long ride fuel?!) And then it crept in – guilt from blog neglect.

I’ve still been reading though – I know that Julia went on a sick training trip, Betsy is planning (are you serious??) a freaking amazing racing/spectating trip, Steve is an overunder pronator and yes damnit we will ride soon, my teammate Matt posted a SOLID  race at Oceanside 70.3. I haven’t been able to post, but I’m definitely still reading!

ANYWAYS. Long story short, this is my life right now:

[ETA: we're back to the current date - April 19th.) There are a total of 16 days until my last class of the semester, and then ONE WEEK of finals with my Ex Phys exam on the last possible day – Friday May 13th (we can’t all be lucky) – and then I’m donnnnnne!!

Or at least done for 9 days until my May term class starts. Don’t feel too sorry for me – it’s PE 1012: Beginning Running. And my LAST PE course ever of my Kinesiological education. ( <- That’s the outcome of my degree. “Kinesiological.” Really?) I will, however, accept condolences from July 4th through August 4th when I’m sitting through 4 hours a day / 4 days a week / for 4 weeks of intensive Physics. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little…

Training? It’s going. I had probably the slowest ride of my life yesterday, but I’ve also had lots of great rides so I’ll write that one off as “one of those days” and move on. I’ve also been swimming consistently – 95% of which is contributed to having someone to consistently swim with! Running…? Not quite ready to comment on that one just yet. The racing season will be here in a blink of an eye though, so I better own up and take whatever I’ve got!

If you guys can just hang with me for sixteen more days… I promise my life will be about 75% less packed and stressful, and we can hang out like we used to back in the old days. In a shameless attempt to KEEP any readers that I may still have, I’m going to be posting a giveaway sometime this week, so make sure you check back! I have several to give away, and they rhyme with depression leaves. Only they have nothing to do with Prozac or botany.

Reader Qs:

Can I get a quick collective rundown from the people who are still out there – how is training going? What races do you have coming up? (I know a lot of you have already started competing – how did the 1st of the year go?) Any big trips – racing or otherwise – to look forward to this summer?

Train hard, train smart, train often!

-E