Weather?....What Weather!

So I was sitting down, just going over my training program, thinking about this weekends training schedule and it struck me. I'm getting ready to go outside as it's snowing, bundled up against the cold,for a solid tempo run followed by a bike ride indoors on a trainer. All in preparation for a race that's so far away that I will not only train through this current weather, but also through the exact opposite extreme, potentially extreme heat......weird! It seems so far away, thinking about training through the rest of winter, into and through Spring and Summer with the race at the very beginning of fall. Yet the race is really just over 230 days, 30 weeks really. Think about it, 9 weeks ago we were eating Thanksgiving turkey, 20 weeks ago we celebrated Labor Day and our kids went back to school. 30 weeks ago Israel and Hezbollah were fighting, North Korea tested nuclear missiles, and we just celebrated the 4th of July. All of that seems like yesterday! Why does the look at the past make time seem so fast and the look into the future seems so far away? Yet a minute is a minute and an hour is an hour? Super weird! At this stage of my life I have come to the realization that time is time and it's a gift from our Heavenly Father, not to be wasted. Life truly is one time around thing, no practice runs and no do overs....make the best of it or else! Ok, enough heaviness!
I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures to mark this spot in time along my Journey to Ironman Wisconsin.
Many people ask "do you run outside"? The answer..of course! You just have to have the right gear. For a boy from the Pacific Northwest where the change of seasons means that the rain gets cold in the winter then it gets warm in the summer, midwest winters can be quite strange, even after 5 years. This is what my run looked like this morning.

(click pictures to enlarge)



If you haven't done it, running in the snow is so cool, you have to try it!

So you can run in the winter, swimming is obviously done in a pool, but what about the bike? I get asked all the time about training on the bike in the winter. From time to time I'll take a spinning class with Mike or on my own, but the preferred method is to train on the bike you're going to race on, indoors or out. This year, Santa brought me a very nice trainer and I love to spend my early mornings in the basement with my IPOD spinning away while listening to music. I have a nice corner cut out with my set up, ready to go. This is what it looks like in action, with a close up of the trainer. It's amazing how closely it simulates actual road conditions with great efficiency...no stop signs or traffic!







So here's to time and to making the absolute most of it...you never no how much you have.

Dan