Here We Go

Triathlon season has officially arrived. This weekend I'll be competing in my first tri of the year. The race is at Lake Anna State Park in VA and is called the Kinetic half ironman. It's a really beautiful area and it will be nice to get away for a couple of days. The course should suit me well. I have been feeling quite good with my training as of late and will actually be going into this race a bit rested. When I was planning the races for this year I talked to Janda and we decided that doing a half before Eagleman would be a really good idea. Eagleman has been my big race of the first part of the season for 3 years now. The last two years I've gone into it as my first half of the season. It has worked out pretty well, but my 2nd half ironman of the year is always a bit better. I think it's simply because you get used to that pain again and you also reap a lot of fitness benefits from that first half. It also serves as a nice reality check and allows you to tweak a couple of things with 5 weeks in between races. We chose Kinetic because it has some hills on the bike and run and well, it's tougher than a course like Eagleman or White Lake. This should make Eagleman all the more tolerable. For a smaller event (about 600 people) there will be some very good competition at this race. I'm confident I can be towards the pointy end and contest for the win. I'm still fired up about what went down at Du Nationals so the motivation has been extremely high. To steal a quote from the great Steve Prefontaine, "I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it." Can't wait to get out there and have some fun.

Changing directions...a quick shout out to my mother as it was her birthday yesterday. My mom is an awesome woman. She has always put my 5 siblings and I first no matter what. With mother's day quickly approaching, make sure you do something special for your mom. Thanks for everything mom!

Lastly, check out this interview with Chris Solinski and Simon Bairu (who broke the Canadian 10k record the same night Solinski broke the U.S. record).