Wedding Day / Honeymoon to Costa Rica!

I'm sure everyone is waiting to hear my thoughts on the race from this past weekend in Cedar Point, but as I've eluded to many times before on this medium, life is about more than triathlon.  So with that being said - a package came in the mail today that will allow me to FINALLY be able to finish of this post that I've had in draft mode since about June (or July - let's be honest)

Let's take the way back machine Mr Peabody to this past December shortly after I proposed.  After looking at several local venues during the evenings after work, Ms. Keep Moving Forward (soon to be Mrs.!) and I were discussing the fact that it seemed really silly to drop so much money on a single day.  And contrary to popular belief, neither of us really like to be the center of attention. So jokingly, Kim mentioned that there was still time for us to elope and we began scribbling names down on a cocktail napkin and by the end of the night we had a plan to have the wedding over Memorial Day weekend in Naples, Florida surrounded by only our close friends and immediate family.  (we did that so everyone didn't have to take an extra day of vacation on our account)

Sunset on the beach our first night of the honeymoon

But fast forward a few months into February and we had tossed around a few ideas for a honeymoon, but nothing really stuck out.  See, we've been really lucky and fortunate to have traveled as much as we have in these recent years.  Last year we went to Hawaii, we've traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on a top performer award trip for Kim's work where we got waited on hand and foot.  So we really didn't have any place that our hearts were set on.  Until Kim went to the National Sales meeting for her job and found out that she had won ANOTHER trip by being a top sales performer company wide.  Additionally at the same conference, she was named the MVP of the Northeast region for her division!!! Crazy day.  I got the text and subsequent call and I honestly thought she was joking, but it was to be in early June of 2012 and was in Costa Rica! How cool...

We got the email that we were staying at a place that neither of us would ever DREAM of staying as it was a Four Seasons resort and it was just the perfect storm of being days after our wedding.  A work-paid honeymoon, jackpot!  This is the resort that we stayed in and as you can see it was really posh.  But I digress, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll chat more about the honeymoon in a bit. 

Awards gala in Costa Rica

There is a really crazy story that happened with the wedding day.  I had planned on an 18-20 mile run with my buddy Tim (you'll recognize him again from the hilarious comments on many of my posts) in the morning prior to the ceremony and Kim had planned on getting her nails done with her maid of honor.  Tim and I had a BRUTALLY hot run and we got a little lost, ended up walking for a potion of the run and basically ran out of water and bonked real hard out in the middle of no where (but that's another story...) and we got back to the hotel and I went up to the room to start getting ready for the ceremony. 

This is a few days later...

I got to the room, picked up my phone and listened to a frantic voice mail from my bride to be in which there were tears and sobs saying that she was going to Urgent Care and getting stitches.  I kind of freaked out...called her phone immediately and her maid of honor, Tiffany picked up and confirmed that Kim was fine and just getting 5 stitches put into her hand.  She apparently had a freak out of her own as soon as she entered the premise of Urgent care and told the lady at the front desk, "I'm getting MARRIED today" and the front desk lady took pity on her and pulled her right back to a room.

You can see the band-aid on Kim's hand from the stitches

This little elephant is more well traveled than most people I know!

 

Turns out Kim was going to test the color of the paint prior to going to get her nails done the morning of our wedding and was in the elevator of the hotel and trying to open up a bottle of nail polish that hadn't been opened in a few months and was stuck.  The cap was so cemented on there, that in trying to open the bottle, she cracked it and basically broke it in two, cutting her hand.  Not a god way to start your wedding day when you have to wear a white dress!  Kim and Tiffany tried to get the bleeding to stop themselves, but it was too much and decided to go to Urgent Care.

Us and our wedding party of 2....told you it was a small wedding

Gotta have a little fun!

Well, it all worked out and as I say there were, "blood, sweat and tears" on our wedding day, but what else can you do other than just roll with it?  And that's exactly what we did.  We had some laughs in there as well and the ceremony was beautiful, Kim looked absolutely stunning and I beamed as soon as she walked in.  Our reception was amazingly fun - the singers actually got people up and dancing prior to dinner even being served!  It was a hoot and we were surrounded by the people we love most; family and friends.  Looking back I wouldn't have wanted to change anything. 

My best man, Josh, gave a great toast that even involved a bottle of Strawberry Kiwi Snapple from our Carriage House days and welcomed Kim into "our family".

Kim's dad, Randster gave a heart-warming speech which also had a few good jokes in it too.  Someone captured it via YouTube and it can be found HERE.  We had a slide at the hotel that everyone was staying at and honestly it was a weekend celebration by the pool.  My nephews even thought the entire pool party that the hotel was for us and asked me, "Uncle, is this all for you?!" to which I replied, "sure..." :o) Let them think it was! Hehe.

On our way to Costa Rica...newlyweds!

But we left for Costa Rica and got there a day prior to this "work" awards trip starting, which was nice to enjoy and get a lay of the land prior to everyone else arriving. The people that were organizing it knew it was our honeymoon and when we checked in, advised us that we had been upgraded to a private villa up the hill.  It was amazing.  We got preferential treatment all week long,  had little gifts delivered to our room, got called out and had to stand up in front of everyone (directors, managers, etc) at the awards gala and we were known as the "honeymoon couple" all week long.  It was pretty cool.

Waiting to head on the next zip line (there were 11 in total) there was one over 1/4 mile long!

Kim didn't get any pics of me because she didn't want to drop the camera

Horseback riding to the base of the volcano

The main thing that is fantastic with these award trips is that you get to do an excursion each day that is picked up by the company.  When we went to Cabo a few years ago, we crammed SO much in that it was like you needed a vacation from your vacation when you returned home.  Our thoughts were to keep it simple, find one thing that looked fun and have the rest of the days to ourselves.  We chose a hacienda borinqen which involved a horseback ride around the countryside, zip lining through the lush canopy and then a visit to the thermal hot springs at the active volcano.  Such cool memories and we got a massage one other day, but with Kim's new stitches, our water sports activities were curtailed and we got to lay by the pool drinking beers instead (how awful!...haha)

Mud baths at the thermal springs

Part of our daily morning hike

We had our own little private hut up the road that you got driven to by a little golf cart.  But the thing was that the hills were so steep that often when getting driven up, they ran out of steam and stopped in the middle of the path!  The drivers then had to call another cart to come and get you, which was funny becuase we could've just walked. Kim also made the executive call to sign us up for spin classes every morning and they had some crazy intense instructors.  Each morning we also would do a little hike up and over the ridge from one side of the island to another. Fun stuff, but BOY were we drenched in sweat afterwards!

Our private villa up the hill

Fun surprises left in our room, along with wine

I'll leave you all with some more pictures of our the wildlife that we saw, scenery shots and pics from the gala, but I feel extremely lucky.  I'm married to an amazing woman and we've already experienced so much, I'm so excited to see what the future has in store for us, but am perfectly fine with letting it unfold as it should.  No need to rush it, we have all of our lives together to make more memories.  

This bird would come on our balcony every morning and steal our sugar packets for our coffee and fly away! Ballsy little punk...

These large lizards would just walk around the grounds...

We finally saw monkeys!

I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed experiencing it.  Cheers.

Time Management and the Ironman Triathlete

This is an article that I wrote for RideCarbon recently and I thought I would share it here since a lot of peoples seasons are winding down and we're all collectively looking towards next year.

I’ve always finished each season and looked back on my training logs and smiled. Deep down I know that after a good result, I’ve known that there was nothing more I could’ve done. With each passing season I always thought that my training schedule was jam packed and I couldn’t have fit even an hour more of training into it. But the crazy thing is, year after year, I always bump that “total hours of training” time up north again.

It’s not like you magically have more hours in the year, or get less sleep, from what I know, triathletes are the masters of time management. I have no clue how the super-mom’s do it or the people who have incredibly unreliable and jumpy work commitments, but as a young athlete I am lucky enough to not have many distractions in order to streamline both training workload and nutrition to optimize performance and lifestyle. To the folks with time commitments and other obligations, I give you an incredible amount of credit; I don’t know how you pack it all into one day!

You often hear the phrase “triathlon is a lifestyle – not a hobby” and that is fairly accurate in my mind. From making smart nutritional choices each day, to waking up before the sunrise many days of the week, training for an ironman is not easy. Most folks would just rather roll over, hit the snooze button and catch a few more Z’s, rather than wake up and hop into a cold pool at the ungodly early hours before the sun rises. As a time crunched athlete, we try to maximize our workouts and get the most out of each time we pull the swim cap over our head, clip into the bike pedals or lace up the running shoes.

Many people (myself included) look at professional triathletes and wonder how they are able train for 30-40 hours weekly and continually perform at their peak. The logistics of doing this while also holding down a full time job are overwhelming to most newcomers. As someone who has gotten ridiculously close to that 30 hour mark in my own training while also holding down a 40+ hour a week full time job, I figure I might as well share some tips and tricks in how to “get it all in”. (Case in point, I am writing this article from plane seat 12C while en route to my corporate headquarters for business travel.)

However, in order to effectively plan out a routine and capitalize on the hours that you are given in the day, the first thing that a time crunched athlete needs is a solid baseline. My suggestion is to look at the last few weeks of your training and average them together to see where you stand in “total hours per week”. From this you can move onward and upward and make the most out of each day. Because if you don’t know where you are starting, then you’ll never understand how to keep moving forward.

Once you have the solid baseline of hours that you are comfortable training in a given week, you can plan out on two different fronts; first how to maximize your free time in the week by scheduling your “basic week of workouts” around your schedule and secondly, how to increase that number of hours to be able to withstand a larger or higher training load. In this article I will focus primarily on a few tips and tricks that I have found in order to schedule life around triathlon.

I like to look at my season as certain blocks of training and you probably do too; you know the usual – pre-season, base phase, build, taper, etc. I try to increase up to an average amount of hours that exceeds or builds off of where I was in the previous week/month/year. I don’t want to get into the specifics on what workouts will make you faster or when to schedule them in your week (I feel that dives a little deeper than this article will allow) I just want to focus on when to fit them all in.

The time crunch is different for each athlete as no two people’s schedules are the same and most likely are consistently changing. So before you start moving workouts around and arranging your life, there should be some introspection on how much you want your training to dictate your life and most of the time this coincides with your goals for the year. Everyone must come up with a definitive hierarchy in their own mind on where triathlon fits in relation to other things such as; family, work, social life, etc. Often times increasing stress in one area of life can cause undue tension in others so be aware as your season progresses. Many people I know wake up well before normal folks in order to get their workouts in and ensure that it does not disrupt any of the aforementioned areas of their life. Having a spouse or partner that approves and is supportive often helps too! But for the basic time crunched triathlete, managing to fit their workouts into their busy schedules is a must.

Anyone that is willing to try and improve themselves already understands that you likely have to make some sacrifices in your life to excel and as type-A triathletes, many of us don’t have a problem focusing our energy and cutting out the excess. Often triathletes err on the side of going overboard and therefore get looked at as the ridiculous person that is wearing spandex to the grocery store because post ride/run is the only time left in the day to shop! (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’ve done it myself!) So just be leery of that! Anyway, back to the focus of this article…Some of the ways that I have found to increase training hours are specific to my schedule, but I’m sharing them in the hopes that they might be able to help you as well.

This past year I was able to run 3-4 days per week during my lunch hour. Luckily, my office had a shower that was in the janitor’s closet in the basement (which I’m sure my co-workers were thankful for as well!) that I was able to utilize to clean up quickly year round after my lunch runs. In getting out on my lunch hour and running a few miles, I was able to get a mental break from the stress of work by running with some friends thru downtown, but also I was able to get my miles in when normally I would just let that time slip away. So, if you can go out for an hour at a time and lace up your shoes for 4 days a week, that’s an additional 4 hours of training each week that you completed prior to getting home in the evening. I’d like to think of it as “free time”.

One of the other factors in increasing training hours year over year was that I was able to join a master’s swim program at a local college that met each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the ungodly hour of 5:45am. We swam for an hour and a half and this was a very supportive and fun crew (that always helps) that held you accountable and gave a reason to climb out of bed that early in the morning. With a little planning and grabbing some nutrition before heading to work, this accounted for my weekly swims of 3 times a week and (if I got in on time…) four and a half hours more of training per week.
 
In the summer months it takes a little more planning, but many people forget that a recovery ride or endurance ride for their commute in the morning and evening can be a very enjoyable and beneficial way to get to work, save on gas, and also get some more hours in. It takes a little planning on maybe bringing your next day’s clothing into the office the day prior and also requires a shower in your workplace, but if you can swing it, then you’re well on your way of increasing you hours in the saddle!

Myself, I used to be a night owl, but training for triathlon has turned me into a semi-morning person (having an automatic coffee maker that you can set the night before always helps too) and there are many hours that are often overlooked in people’s schedules. So before you say there aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all in, take that closer look at your schedule and see if you can squeak out any more in your life. Or see if you can “kill two birds with one stone” and get your training in when you’d be normally doing something else. As one of my favorite quotes goes, “you have to make the most of the time that you are given”. So get out there and get it done friends, maybe I’ll see you someday before the sun rises!

Rolling the dice...

Well, I've been debating actually writing this update, but since I have nothing to really lose - I'll shoot it up here for the world to see.  I have an Iron-distance race in 9 days and I've gone to see an orthopedic foot and ankle doctor 2 times in the last 3 weeks.  Don't worry nothing's broken (I was really worried initially) and I'll tell the story in a bit.

Let's push it back to about 2 weeks ago on Sunday, I was cruising along on a 22 mile run and was running 2x11mile loops from our house on this secluded bike path.  I finished the first 11 mile loop solo and went back to the house to refill water bottles, pick up nutrition, etc and Kim came along with her mountain bike as she wanted to help support and be my "water woman".  The way she tells this story, she could tell a difference in my gait the minute we left the house and could tell I was crabby.  In my mind, this was the LAST run I had to do before taper and I just had to gut thru it, right?  

About 18 miles in, the pain in my right foot felt like someone was stabbing a knife through it and I stopped.  I thought it was my shoes were laced too tightly or something stupid like that, but turns out I was limp-running for a few miles.  Regardless, good thing Kim was there on the mtn bike, because she went home and got the car and picked me up. 

 

The next day I called the doc, got the x-rays you see above and below.  He confirmed nothing was broken, no stress fractures or anything.  (which is great!)  The official diagnosis is that I have capsulitis of the 3rd metatarsal.  Described to me as; all joints have sacks of fluid around them as lubrication, where your toes connect to your feet, there are little capsules of fluid and that particular one is inflamed.  He prescribed an orthodic to off-load some of the pressure to that joint, some medicine to reduce the inflammation and speed up healing and also to rest, not run for a week, and ice.  

I've been doing all of the above and also wearing sneakers around the house for a little extra support.  After a week the pain drastically reduced and I was able to walk without much pain or limping, but I'm a little leery and taking a huge gamble come race day.  I've not run since then and been aqua-jogging to keep the hip flexors engaged and to maintain fitness.  Right now the pain is like a 1-2 our of 10 whenever I go down stairs or toe-off on that foot.

I know what my contingency plan is during the race and I'm gonna try to get thru the whole thing in one piece, but you can never be too sure.  I'm pretty sure I can get thru 13 miles, but the last loop of an IM is hard enough in itself with your body and feet at 100%, so we'll see what happens come next Sunday.  Either way, I'll be out there "rolling the dice" on the race course and hoping everything holds up! You can't stop this squirrelly kid that fast :o)  The Athlete Guide is out, I've done all the training, I know where my fitness is and I really just want the opportunity to prove to myself that I can properly execute a race like I know I'm supposed to! (meaning - NOT blowing up on the run...) Next weekend will be interesting, stay tuned - it'll be quite the show either way.  Cheers.

Rev3 Cedar Point course preview day

This is how far I am behind on my blog entries.  I did this race preview day type thing back on July 21st and I'm finally getting around to writing a little blip about it here.  So, here goes! 

 

I have never been up to the course at Rev3 before and from all of the reports I read and people that I talked to, there were a few things in common:

 

1. The course was windy

2. The bike course was really uncomfortably bumpy

3. The course was windy... (I mention that twice because it is very relevant)

 

So I wanted to go and check it out for myself.  Kim found, via the Cleveland Tri Club that Rev 3 was putting on this "course preview day"on like the Tuesday before the actual day. So I had a 6 hour ride to get done and we had a free weekend when we were still in temporary housing and took the opportunity to go up to Cleveland and stay with her aunt and uncle and check out this course. 

 

That morning we decided to try and go for a swim at the beach up in Cedar Point and the waves were crashing into the shore and BOY was it intense.  I got a little giddy because I kinda like swimming in rough water.  It's a challenge and I know if it's rough come race day I have a definite advantage over those weaker swimmers.  Kim and her friend Tiff stayed on the beach and wussed out as I was the only one who braved the chop.  It was fine once you got out past where the waves break and you timed everything with the rise and fall of the lake. 

 

After the swim, we got ready and they instructed who was to be in what group (A was 24mph+, B was 20-24mph and C was below that) and I hopped into a pace line at the A group, but quickly got shelled out the back.  The course was good, people told me it was all SUPER bumpy, but it's just chip seal.  The REAL factor in this race will be the wind.  We did 2 loops (most folks there only did one, but I ran into a guy and cycled with him from the Eleanor Rocks team named Chris who was really nice and from Michigan) and we both were looking to go long.  It's mainly just the chip seal styled pavement and for two long stretches it felt like you were in a headwind and the wind changes and drifts on you, so just be leery of that.  It seems to come from every direction on you. 

 

The course itself is mainly flat.  They say it has rollers, not-so-much.  This is just flat terrain with a few little blips in the radar screen.  My bike elevation chart looked like this:



 

And I marked the areas where the loops started because we didn't start at the start/finish, we met elsewhere and I tacked on some extra at the end to get to 6hrs.  The one first BIG hill is at the bottom of a downhill, you hit a 90 degree bend and it really scrubs your speed, because then you fly up into this climb that's substantial, but only last about 100m.  The other ones, I don't really remember, but might have been highway overpasses.  Nothing to write home about.  Just be sure to be in your small ring at the bottom of that hill, otherwise you'll tip over.

 

All in all the trip was good recognisance and I feel strongly about the bike course.  If the wind is light, this would be a good course to ride within yourself and still rip a fast bike split.  See you out there in 10 days amigos!  It's taper and race time. Cheers.

Triathlon funnies

So I've had some posts that have been on my To-Do list here for a while and since I'm "officially' tapering now, I suppose I can get to them!  But for right now, I'm just going to leave you all with <hopefully> a laugh.  I found some good photos that have little to do with triathlon online:

My doctor DID tell me I was anemic a while ago....

They should've made an IRONMAN bar!

I just thought this was hilarious and very true

But anyway, things have been uber busy here, we've been decorating the house, adjusting to home life and having visitors up the wazoo come and stay with us.  My good friend Phil is actually with us for 6 weeks while he finishes up a rotation to become a PA in Circleville, OH.

Between all that, we're trying to do the normal stuff to adjust to Ohio, like get new licenses, plates, registrations and titles for the cars.  Here is a shot of good old "blue balls" taken a few summers ago.  I can finally post it now because I no longer have those plates and according to the NYS DMV, they've been destroyed after I mailed them back.  But the one project I did was to take all of the stickers off the bumper of that car, so as not to be "that guy" in a new town and new city.  Right now the only Ironman paraphernalia I have on the car is a simple chrome license plate holder that reads, "Ironman World Championships" 

I still love stickers, just don't want to be too ostentatious.  I've got a draft of the wedding and honeymoon post almost ready to go, along with a few other articles and a quick post about a course preview day that I did up at Rev3 in Cedar Point (along with some updates and x-ray pictures...cue the dramatic music!)  But I'll leave that till next time. Rest hard, keep those feet up my friends and I'll see you on the roads of Ohio.  Cheers!

Ridecarbon.com article

So I was asked to write a few articles for a new and awesome triathlon site shortly after arriving back stateside from that race in the middle of the Pacific.  If you've never heard of the site, check it out HERE.  They are a fantastic supporter of many different races in WNY and PA.  They have an online store which always seems to be having sales and try to share as much knowledge about racing triathlons as they can.


I wrote a short article about the importance of training with bike and run nutrition if you are doing anything half IM or longer.  Train with what's on course and you'll remove another variable from your race.  It's kinda simple, but a lot of people (myself included in the past) will wing it on race day.  


The article can he found HERE and while you're at it, poke around the site, there's a lot of good stuff on there and new content is always being added.  Cheers!

Life in Columbus and training

Again, it's been far too long since I last wrote, and even the wife has been on me asking questions like, "are you ever going to blog again!??!" But c'mon, cut us some slack, we've had a lot going on.  I still owe some folks out there a "race report" for the ultramarathon that was our wedding and honeymoon, but that's on the "to-do" list still and I'll get that one going in a little bit.  This entry will be more focused on the transition to life in Columbus, OH and just training in general.  (Disclaimer - this post is lengthy and there will be no fun photos)

I've always wanted to live somewhere other than NY.  I've been lucky enough to travel to almost all of the 50 states within our Union. I think at last count I was at 45 out of 50 states that I've been to.  Still have (Alaska, N+S Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska) a few to hit, but I've had a good opportunity to travel a lot and see a variety of places in the states.  To friends in my past growing up, I've said that I've always had this allure to the West and after travelling out there on several different occassions, I'd come up with a few places that seemed pretty neat to visit (Sedona, AZ...Moab, UT...Portland, OR) All of these places looked pretty cool in theory to my young and feeble mind and in my wildest dreams I never thought I'd be relocating to the very middle of a state only a few short hour drive away in Ohio.  But you know what?  It's been a good transition and I'm really glad we didn't get picked up and moved halfway across the US. 

Ohio, like any other large move where you transport all of your belongings and relocate yourself, was a big undertaking.  Hell, we're still getting our arms around a lot of the things that need to be done before we're finally "settled".  The main thing being that we're closing on our new home in just a few weeks, so that should be a big hurdle in the process of normalcy in Ohio. 

I'm not a big fan of change, but I'm slowly getting accoustomed to things out here in Buckeye county.  As normal, when you move and jump in feet first - you tend to grab onto anything that remotely resembles the life that you've grown up with over the last 30 years. (I'm not 30 yet...but getting dangerously close!)  Anyone who knows me understands my penchant for learning new directions is quite SUB par.  So, throw me into a new state with ALL unfamiliar roads, and a job that I normally don't leave the house with, leads to some incredibly confusing and meandering rides/runs/drives around town.  I'm not shy enough to say that I've never gotten lost in the month that we've been here, I've had my share of rides and runs where I've gotten turned around, but I've yet to have that moment where ABSOLUTELY nothing looks familiar and I'm COMPLETELY and utterly lost.  Although I'm sure that's soon to come!

In regards to training and racing, I've been trying to jump into the tri-scene here by doing my own thing and looking around for races that fit into my schedule, but nothing has come about yet.  With training for another full iron distance race, it's hard to find people willing to hop along with you.  I'm what some might refer to as a lone wolf when it comes to running or biking and if you're not going my HR or wattage, then I'm just gonna keep on doing my own thing and you can run away from me.  I don't mean that to be rude, hell I'd LOVE for people to come train with me, I just know my tendency is to run or ride with you and I often find myself going above and beyond to keep up or to start a mini-"race within a training session."  Long story short, my ego gets in the way.  So I train solo for the most part.  No big deal, that's the life of an endurance athlete.  Not many folks will be chomping at the bit to go and ride a hard 6 hour ride with you...it's the life we choose and I'm totally cool with it, just makes finding like minded people a tad bit harder.

Swimming wise - Kim and I have found a really solid group of folks in the New Albany Masters Swimming team here in Columbus.  I was REALLY nervous about finding the right swim team.  The team we left in Rochester was like a second family to us.  They were friends in and out of the pool and a lot of people whom I truly miss.  But the solace is knowing that since I'm coming back to Rochester about once a month for work, I can get to see them if they allow me back for a practice or two during that time.  So Kim and I heard of this crew in New Albany and let me tell you - Ohio swimming is INTENSE!!! Even down to high schools and colleges, their swimming is way faster than what we normally do in NY. 

For example, the first practice we did (and Kim and I thought they were trying to haze us, but I guess this was a normal practice) was 8x200's on 2:30...that's a base 1:15/100yd!! But we're finding a few triathletes in the mix and even though their practices are only an hour instead of 1.5, it's a good crew and they've accepted us like a swimming family always does.  We've been invited to swim and bike with them on several occassions and they've even shown us some good spots to open water swim and some key places to ride which is awesome!

Speaking of which, in Rochester, we got REALLY spoiled by the amount of shoulder that was on the roads there.  I've ridden down route 65 in and around Mendon Ponds Park and there's been 6' across to the right of the white line and we've been 3 bikes accross in that section yacking away and still relatively safe from traffic.  Here in Ohio (almost all of Ohio) the white line has about a 3 inch section of shoulder before the road stops and falls off into gravel or sand.  I'm not gonna lie, this scares the be-jeebus out of me!!! I literally am white knuckled on the handlebars whenever I ride outside in traffic and I'm slowly getting used to it.  The nice thing is that the majority of the drivers will wait until it is safe to pass and will give you ample amount of room on the roads.  There are no bike lanes here, so that makes some travel by bike a little difficult.  One ef the other little oddities is the fact that there are an overabundance of yellow cars here in Ohio...and that makes me smile.

But anyway, we've found a really solid 23 mile loop around the Hoover Dam that is marked and it's the Westervill Bike Club's route.  They have a 16 and a 23 mile loop with markings on the roadway and it's really nice.   It's kind of on back country roads and not many cars travel them.  On the 4th of July I did about 5 loops during a 123 mile/6 hour ride and learned the route pretty well so that I could almost do it in my sleep!  But it's nice and from our house will be only about a 5 minute bike over to that area, which will be really convenient.  Running wise - I haven't found any trails to run on yet, but I've found a bike path that was good enough for a 12 miler the other day (6 out and 6 back) and I've been using that for most of my runs because its secluded and I don't have to worry about traffic. 

Training wise, I've been getting in some really good focused training, recovery and some intense sessions.  I was 8 minutes shy of hitting the 27 hour barrier last week and have 2 more weeks to go in this block before a well earned rest week.  I'm hoping to top out close to that 30 hour barrier.  Things are going well and I'm getting geared up for Rev3.  I have a lot to prove there and I just want to finally be able to execute a race where I am proud of the pacing and subsequent marathon time in an ironman.  I know it'll happen, I just  have to be patient and put in these hard weeks now. 

Other than that, it's been the normal things like finding the right grocery stores (PLEASE never take Wegmans for granted!) sampling and finding new places to eat (I don't think any sushi restaurant will live up to "the spot" in Rochester) what the new TV and radio channels are, etc.  I'm sure we'll have to get new doctors/dentists and all that jazz when the time comes but for now we're making do :o) I've gotten my family set up on Skype so that's been a really neat treat too.  It is SO much better to see someone and chat with them via video than it is to just speak with them over the phone.  I mean, yesterday Kim and I got treated to a light saber battle by my nephews who were both in the underwear! You can't beat that, haha! (they are 5 and BIG Star Wars fans...)

So Ohio isn't turning out that bad :o) I mean, how could it?  I'm here with my best friend and wife and we're starting our lives together, we have an amazing house being built and we're slowly acclimating to the groove of life here.  Yes, I miss family and friends in Rochester, but I know we're going to see them often as we've not moved to Alaska or clear across the country.  It just makes the time that we do see them all that more special.  But with that I'm going to wrap up this entry and leave the wedding and honeymoon post for another day.  To give you a little hint, there was "blood sweat and tears" on our wedding day, but I'll leave that story until the post for you to wonder about.  Until then friends, stay cool in this hot weather, keep the rubber side down, stay safe and I'll be out on the crazy roads of Ohio, training my arse off! Cheers.