The Vacation Dilemma.

8 days and 7 nights! Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas! What could possibly be wrong with this? Coming from Wisconsin after a long and cold Winter, the warm ocean breeze and sun couldn't come at a better time? Right?

Ok, I will admit that I love cruises and love being with my family even more. This year, however, I will be in the middle of my Ironman training and just 4 weeks from my 1st 1/2 Ironman race in California. In the past I would have panicked. As I promised all of you, I would use IronWidow to help me all year. This is one of those occasions. Instead of panicking, I just added the cruise to my listing of races, and important dates for 2007.

I will try and sneak in a few early AM runs (have you ever run on a treadmill on a cruise ship. Very interesting to say the least!). I will also ask my coach to help me use this week as a "low" or semi-recovery week. Either way, I made the commitment to IronWidow and I will keep that.

Someone once asked if I combine races and vacation? That is really a entire new post - but for me that answer is NO, NO, NO! And you?

Stu is making progress this year already - don't you think? Are you proud of me?

The SUPPORT Team!

"Triathlon is NOT a team sport!"

I heard a spouse of a triathlete tell me this once and did not think much of it. It was after a race and the comment was more in passing. The comment was not meant to be positive or negative - just fact. I think I actually nodded in agreement, but later had to think again. I remember getting in my car about 20 min later and was mad at myself for agreeing to the comment. This is not true for 2 reasons.

1) Let me first start off by saying that I'm not a fan of the word "team" being used loosely. You cannot "make" a team. In my mind at least you "become" a team. I got an E-mail from a guy named Jay that put it perfectly saying: "Recently, the Greek national basketball team beat the US national team in basketball. A group of average basketball players beat a team full of superstars from the US...none trying to be the superstar...just bringing their own strengths to make a superstar TEAM." How cool is that. The US was a "team" but not a team as I like to define it.

2) The people you see are only 1/2 of the "team." The other half is YOU. Yep. That is right. YOU. Yes, triathletes spend a lot of time alone running, swimming, and biking, but that is only a small portion of the day (most days at least). The rest of the team is you, and this is the part that can make or break the entire team. No matter how good someone is on the playing field, there must be a support team to help him or her along. While we ride, swim and bike our team of children, spouses, friends, and co-workers are there for us.

I know that as Ironman day comes close my "team" starts to ask a lot of questions.

"How are things going?."

"How many miles did you ride this weekend?"

The greatest comment of all came from my father as he held my hand just the day before he died "so... how is the Ironman training going?"

With that said, I hope you are lucky enough to be part of a GREAT team both on and off the field.