A Workout and a Surprise

I began my day in Indianapolis, with a 4:20 a.m. Eastern time wake-up. I flew through some storms in the Midwest on my way back to sunny Phoenix, and drove home just like any other day. I called The Firefighter driving home to see if he wanted to workout with a reply of, "I'll call you sometime after 10:00 a.m." I got not one, but three calls back on my cell phone and then a call to my house saying, "Why haven't you answered your phone? I just signed up for the 2012 Ironman Coeur d'Alene." His three messages confirmed it on my voice mail. The next thing I knew, I had talked to my wife and added another Ironman to my schedule in June 2012. I'll be doing the race with a half dozen other people that all made the spur-of-the-moment decision. This was not part of the plan for next year, but beginning to travel for races was a part of my long-term plan. So the surprise is that The Firefighter and I are doing Ironman Arizona in November 2011 and following it up with Ironman Coeur d'Alene in June 2012.

The addition to my 2012 schedule was a surprise (though a welcome one) and my wife's support was an even greater surprise. Idaho for a summer vacation is not necessarily a tropical destination.

With my wife's okay and a lazy day behind me, we made our way to finish up with a back and bicep workout followed by abs and a run workout on the treadmill. My wife is doing the Jeff Galloway system to build up for 2 half marathons, and today was scheduled to be a 30-minute training day. This system is not one I would choose for myself in triathlon training, but would highly recommend for anyone focusing solely on the run. It involves combinations of running for a period of time followed by some walking, such as 3 minutes of running followed by 1 minute of walking. I ran 3.5 miles next to her to keep her company. This was not an epic workout, but a good one following an early 4-hour flight and a $630.00 Ironman investment.