Christmas dinner fun!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVyidlFR9Jk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ironman Louisville 2013 Race Report

This years race took place on Sunday August 25th.  And again this year it was my "A" race.  Although I had a lot of fun and successful races this season they were all truly build up to this event.  As you'll read in my report below the day didn't quite go as planned.  

I participated in this race last year and being my first Ironman I was very happy with my finish time.  Coming in at 13:08 while fighting off some major stomach issues I really couldn't complain.  After the race I promised my wife I wouldn't do another one for a while.  I'm pretty sure my training is actually harder on her having to deal with 3 kids while I'm gone.  But with all that said my brother signed up, started working on me, I landed an awesome sponsor with SoundAsthma.com and the next thing I knew I was signed up to do it again!

Training seemed to go quite well this year.  I did most of it alone and followed a more challenging plan. I felt confident coming into the race that a 12 hour finish or better was not out of the question.  Boy was I wrong!  The year seemed to fly by and the next thing I knew it was race week.

The week started off with a MAJOR bummer when my brother came down with strep throat.  He wasn't able to race and I felt terrible for him.  But even though he didn't race he race he went through all the pre race stuff with me.  Stayed in the hotel with me and was there all day again like last year.  I have to admit though that during the hardest of times during the race I was REALLY cussing him!  :)

Race day was here and the early wake up call had me up and ready to go.  The nerves were kicking but all my plans were spot on.  Got to transition early, took care of business and then off to the swim start I went.  We got there in good time and got a decent spot in line.  Hung out for a bit and my wife, mom and sister in law came down early to see us and headed to the docks to get a good viewing spot.  Before I knew it, it was go time!  Jumped in the water (without the belly flop of last year, much to my brothers disappointment) and was off.  Swimming is my weakest event but I felt things were going well.  At about 800 meters in my Garmin beeped.  It had never done that in a swim before and I assumed I had hit the stop button.  I'm a little anal about that stuff so I started treading water trying to figure out what happened and start it back up.  That's when my day went in the crapper.  Severe leg cramps set in.  Both legs at times, one leg at others, from my feet to my hammys.  It was so bad at times it took everything I had to not start screaming for help.  At one point I went under and felt like I may not make it.  That's when the emotions set it.  I was praying as hard as you can pray.  The thought of not making it out of the water was almost to much for me.  I just kept trying to move forward and somehow I made it to the swim exit.  And thankfully for the current it was 9 minutes faster than last year.

As I walked through T1 trying to gather myself I had pretty much lost my drive for the day.  I wasn't going to quit but I wanted to SOOOO badly!  Took my time in T1 and made my way out on the bike course.

The Louisville bike course is dead flat for the first and last 10 miles.  You can really blow up your race if you go out like a crazy person.  My plan for the day was to keep my heart rate under 160 and that helped me keep a reasonable 21 mph pace on those first 10 miles.  After that its hills upon hills.  Climbing the first big hill of the day I saw a man laying in the middle of the road that was coming back down that hill and he was hurt bad.  That again shook me at the core.  I tried not to think about it but its hard to get that out of your mind.  Then around mile 40 I took my turn hitting the pavement.  Got mixed up at an aid station and went right over the handlebars landing dead on my left shoulder.  It hurt but the adrenaline had me back up and riding in no time.  But again that tested my resolved even more.   Halfway through the bike I was averaging 18.5 and keeping my heart rate way down.  That made me feel good but again I had lost the desire to push the effort so my speed ended up slipping over the rest of the race.  I climbed off the bike averaging 17.9 which was slightly better (but much easier) than last year.  Actually had an average heart rate of 148 for the bike ride.

Coming through T2 was an odd feeling.  After the day I was having I was still ahead of last years time.  That got me sparked a little.  Found a bit of motivation!  I hit the run course watching my heart rate and working on pace.  The first 3 miles were around a 9 minute mile which was faster than I should have run, but my effort was good.  The next couple miles had a few short walk breaks and then the wheels fell off.  Walking a lot running a little.  My hips and quads were gone, every step was so painful and running just compounded it.  After 13 or so miles walking was all I could handle.  I was an emotional and physical wreck.  My family and friends did an awesome job spacing out on the run course.  Each time I saw one of them my spirits were lifted and even though I would get choked up trying to talk to them it was great seeing them.  With about 5 miles to go I had a friend or family member within site almost the entire way.  That really helped bring me to the finish with a smile on my face.  I couldn't wait to see my wife, I didn't know if she had heard the news of my bike crash and swim struggles but I knew that if she had she would be crying with me at the finish.  I saw them all and gave them a quick kiss in the finish shoot and across the line I went in a not so fun 13:52.  I went straight for my wife and had the best hug of my life.  We cried a little but I assured her I was okay and then we celebrated.  I hugged everyone I could find and told them thanks for coming down.  I had a big group of supporters and they all Rock!  My wife, kids, mom, dad, Kyle, Sam,  mother in law, father in law, Uncle Steve, Toby, Scott, Stan, Barbara, Kaylen, Julie, James, Tony, Courtney, Niall (and family), Keith, Scott (and family).  I appreciate each of you and feel totally blessed to have such an awesome group of family and friends!

I was really down after this years race.  The feeling of not meeting my goals and underachieving has been really hard to get over.  I'm just now getting the sense that maybe this finish with all it's challenges was actually more impressive than last years.  After swearing off Ironman distance during the swim, the bike and again on the run this year I'm already coming around to do another.  It won't be next year or even the year after that, but I would like to race another one.  Somewhere different from Louisville, make it a vacation race.  Already looking forward to next season.  Gonna work harder at the short course stuff and try to see what I can do.  

Thanks for following along on my spotty blog this year.  Hope you all enjoyed it!

Ironman Muncie 70.3 Race Recap

Struggling to find time to post to but wanted to get something out here about my race last weekend.

My wife wasn't able to make the trip because all of our usual baby sitters were out of town.  That was a major bummer because we were looking forward to going up together and I knew I was set for a good race and hoped she would be there to celebrate.  But, life happens and in this situation is was unavoidable so she tracked me from home with the kids.

With Kristin not going my buddy Scott and I shared a room and we went up together.  I don't think I've ever been on any guys trips with just Scott so it was cool to get to hang out that much.  This was his first triathlon so we had plenty to talk about.  We headed up Friday and took our time.  The expo was fun and after hanging there for a bit we went to the race site and dropped off our bikes.  That makes race morning much easier I believe.  Then we headed to our hotel, checked in and went to meet some other friends for dinner.

EARLY the next morning our wake up call came and it was time to get moving!  Took us a little longer than i expected to get ready but we got to the race site in plenty of time and got a pretty good parking space.  

Got the news on the way that the race was wetsuit legal!!!  Since I'm not very good at swimming I was happy about that surprise especially since the water was in the 90s last year!  Once at the race site I got everything set up as usual and the waiting game began.  That's the worst part I may add!

The race started on time and I finished the swim in 43 minutes.  Slow, but WAY better than I did last year.  The swim was very rough this year.  Was constantly getting bumped or hit or something.  By far the most physical swim I've ever had. So when you couple that with the fact that I've got a hitch in my stroke that pulls me hard right and way off course I'm happy with a 43 min swim.

Transition was good and fast and I was out on the bike!  Wanted to have a fast bike but stay within myself and keep heart rate under 160.  I was flying at first, the early 5 miles were slightly downhill and I was we'll over 22 average without pushing it.  I did lose my aero bottle early on an that had all my water in it so I was stressing about that.  But I just kept on pushing and made it to the rough patch of road I'd heard all about.  I still wasn't prepared for how rough it was.  15 miles of about the most rough pavement I've ever ridden on.  Zapped my legs and killed my back.  Brought my average down to 21.4mph which is were it stayed for the entire race.

Out onto the run my legs felt really good but my stomach was a wreck again.  Fought the gas, cramping, needing to pee or whatever that was the entire 13.1 miles.  I shocked myself with how good I felt through the halfway mark and was averaging just over 8 minute miles.  I started to hit a wall at mile 10 and the hills coming back to the finish about killed me.  I walked more than I'd planned, but kept my pace under 9 and finished the run in 1:50!!!  

All in all it was a great race for me.  Finished in 5:16 which was a PR at that distance by almost an hour!!!!  Trying to recover now and still get my volume in for this week (not going well) because IM Louisville is just over 5 weeks away!!!

Friday July 5th - 50 Days Out

Weight:  184.8

Diet:  Pretty good

Scheduled Training:  1:15 swim and 1:45 bike

Actual Training:  40 min swim and 1:55 bike (crushed the bike)

Life:  Family went out of town since I ha to work this morning.  Just been relaxing this evening!  Went by the bike shop today love doing that!  Saw this beauty and I want it!

Thursday July 4th - 51 Days Out

Weight:  182 (dropped a ton of water weight this week)

Diet:  Terrible!!!!!!

Scheduled Training: Off day!

Actual Training:  hanging with fam!

Life:  Fun day hanging with friends and celebrating the 4th!

Wednesday July 3rd - 52 Days Out

Weight:  183.6 (180 flat after run)
Diet:  Has been great, keeping snacking under control.  Worried about July 4th party though!
Schedule Training:  1:15 swim and 2 hour run
Actual Training:  1:35 swim and 2 hour run
Life:  Same, looking forward to seeing my friends tomorrow at the party.  Was feeling really confident about Muncie all day today.  Training has been going that well I guess but then I had the hardest 2 hour run of my life today.  Guess all yesterday's stuff and the back to back runs really are that challenging.  Made me question my fitness!

Tuesday July 2nd - 53 Days Out

Weight:  185 (going the right way)
Diet:  Good, have been really good about snacking
Scheduled Training:  1:45 bike and 1 hour run
Actual Training:  1:35 bike and 1 hour run as brick.  10 min short because I took out the cool down
Life:  Good, nothing new to report really.  Feeling good with my training and confident going into Muncie next week.

Monday July 1st - 54 Days Out

Weight:  185.8
Diet:  Pretty good, can't remember exactly what I ate but I know I was good
Scheduled Training:  Active recovery day, easy swim recommended
Actual Training:  Easy 1500 yard swim
Life:  Great, work going well and training going well and family is great

Sunday June 30th - 55 Days Out

Weight:  185 (just water weight loss at this point)

Diet:  Pretty good until after my long bike ride, then I couldn't stop eating!!!!

Scheduled Training:  Long bike and brick

Actual Training:  5 hour plus ride, went 87 miles to Hanover and back with Scott.  Great ride!

Life:  Missed my son this weekend.  He had several overnights and didn't get to see him much.  Had a great ride in the morning that zapped me for the rest of the day, just hung out at home with all the girls.  I live doing that these days.  I'm a lucky man!!!

Saturday June 29th - 56 Days Out

Weight:  186.5

Diet:  Good throughout the day.  Went to DelFrisco's for our Anniversary dinner and went crazy.  But dang that steak was awesome!!!!

Scheduled Training:  I've switched it up so much it's hard to say what I was supposed to do.

Actual Training:  Ran an hour in the heat after the tball game.  It was brutal, legs were killing me!!!

Life:  Had a great day.  Love coaching jacks sports and then my awesome parents watches the kids overnight so we could go to dinner and have some kid free time together.  Love my Family!!!

Friday June 28th - 57 Days Out

Weight: 186.2

Diet:  Okay, ate a lot of Mexican food though

Scheduled Training:  1:45 run and 1:00 swim

Actual Training:  Played golf today and then ran 1:35 in the heat at Cherokee.  Felt strong!

Life:  Has a good time playing golf today.  Was a bit worn out and then the run really took it out of me.  Busy weekend ahead!  Lovin it!!!

Thursday June 27th - 58 Days Out

Weight:  186.4

Diet:  Good, ate pretty well

Scheduled Training:  1 hour swim and 1:45 strength bike set

Actual Training:  1:15 swim and 1:30 bike set.  Felt very good on bike!

Life:  Just a regular day, nothing exciting

Wednesday June 26th - 59 Days Out

Weight:  185.8 (water weight loss)

Diet:  Very good

Scheduled Training:  made some schedule adjustments to accommodate out wedding anniversary, moved today's stuff to Friday.

Actual Training:  took today off to spend the evening with my wife

Life:  today was our 9 year wedding anniversary.  Normal work day but then spent the evening hanging out, talking, watching wedding video and drinking a little champaign.  Very nice evening, I am a very blessed man!!!

Tuesday June 25th - 60 Days Out

Weight:  189.8

Diet:  Very good today

Scheduled Training:  1 Hour run + 1:45 bike

Actual Training: lunch time heat 54 min run and 1:45 trainer session

Life:  Busy day at work, lots of good things going on there.  Got home and had a nice dinner with the family and then cut the grass and pulled some weeds.  Finished up that just in time to tell the kids good night and head downstairs to ride the bike.  Good day, legs are beat but thats a good thing.  

Monday June 24th - 61 days out

Weight:  187.6 (-1 lbs)

Diet:  Good day, controlled portions and I ate pretty well today

Scheduled Training:  active rest day, suggest easy swimming.

Actual Training: no real training today, pretty sore from the week and needed the rest.

Life:  Normal Monday at work, coached tBall practice and took Macie to the vet.  May cut the grass if the light and weather  hold out but that's not looking promising.

Sunday June 23rd - 62 days out

Weight:  188.6

Diet: Quick oatmeal before church, 2 chocolate chip cookies prior to ride, 3 hour bottle on infinit on ride, family dinner and a couple Sam Adams Summer Ales!

Scheduled Training:  Schedule is kind of out the windy for this week. Had such a bad start to the week I decided to flip flop with next week which was a recovery week and go after next week.  So that said all I needed to do today was a 2 hour plus ride.

Actual Training:  3:00 / 50 mile bike ride.  Felt good and strong at the start which was awesome given yesterday and lack of sleep.  Half way through though thunderstorm city set in and it poured down and blew me around almost the entire way home.  That zapped me legs and killed my mental drive.  Was thinking about going for 85 miles but left it alone at 53ish.

Life:  Didnt get home until 4 AM last night and up early for church with the family.  Hoping to be able to cut the grass tonight before I pass out, we'll see I guess!  This blog isn't meant to be a poor me story, I'm very blessed and excited to be taking on my 2nd ironman. Just sharing the craziness of the path!  You probably can't tell but this pic is the beginning of the storm pouring rain!

Saturday June 22nd - 63 days out

Weight:  188.6 (+.2lbs) down to 183.8 post long run

Diet: Honey nut Cheerios before my run, protein shake after, 

Scheduled Training:  Moved long ride to tomorrow, now today was supposed to be swim, short ride and 1 hour run.

Actual Training:  2:18 - 15 mile long run, 37 easy miles on the bike up in Indy with my father in law for the NITE Ride.

Life:  Happy with my run this morning, just what I needed.  Then I coached Jack's tball game and headed up here for the ride.  Gonna be a late night and I'm already thinking about how much tomorrows ride is going to hurt.

Friday June 21st - 64 days out

Weight: 188.4 lbs 

Diet:  Not good, okay breakfast, breakfast pizza for a party at work for lunch (just a few pieces) and meatballs/tacos for dinner at a work function at the Churchill Downs

Scheduled Training: Rest Day

Actual Training:  40 min bike session on the trainer.  Not mentally into it and legs were a little fatigued. Didn't want to do touch much because I'm riding 5 hours very early tomorrow and possibly doing the ride Indy at nite ride tomorrow. Legs will be toast!

Life:  Pretty normal Friday. Hoping to hit the sack early!  Up and at it early tomorrow!!!!

Thursday June 20th - 65 days out

I'm struggling with motivation and stressing about being under prepared for the race this year.  The training plan I'm using has a TON more volume than last year and its been very hard to keep up with work and life getting in the way! Ha!!!  In addition my diet has went to shit for the last couple weeks and I've gained 8+ pounds putting me farther away from the 175 number I told myself I wanted to race at.  So, I've decided to now us this blog as a daily journal to help keep me motivated over the next 65 days.  Thought it may also be a cool insight for others to see what it is like to go thru this.

Weight: 187.8 lbs

Diet: Okay, splurged a little on dinner at Qdoba

Scheduled Training: 1:15 swim and 1:45 strength bike session.

Actual Training:  1 hour bike strength session

Life:  Tired after business trip to San Antonio, Kristin had a bible study from 7:30 to 9:00.  I rode the bike from 7:30 to 8:30 while watching the kids.  Planned to jump on the treadmill when Kristin got home but it was slipping real bad and I wasn't feeling it.  Fell asleep while watching the 3rd quarter of the NBA Finals. 

I've decided to make this a recovery week and redo this week next week.  Also thinking about switching plans...

Ironman Training is Hard

The training hours are starting to add up and my burn out phase is peaking through.  Even though I've had some really great races this year, I'm thinking that racing 3 weeks in a row wasn't such a great idea.  Given that I really tried to "race" them this year the recovery needed was a bit more than I expected.  This caused me to miss a couple long rides which stresses my anal scheduling self out!

The time away from my family including 3 young kids seems worse this year. Thankfully i have the most supportive wife in the world and I really try hard to schedule my workouts around the family stuff.

In addition to that I don't have the training partners I had last year.  Jeff and Kevin were on a similar schedule and it was nice having a couple of really good guys to help push me along and suffer with.  Neither of them are racing Ironman this year and I miss having them out there.  One of the main reasons I signed up for this years race was to race it with my brother.  I'd hoped we would get to train more together and share that part of the journey together also.  Because of his work schedule and the fact we are on different programs we rarely get together to train.  Still a great experience catching up almost everyday on how things are going and still happy to be doing it again!

Okay, enough of the cry baby stuff.  Training is going pretty well and I'm improving in all 3 sports.  My swim is getting better due to a more focused workout plan with more emphasis on drills.  My bike has never been stronger and I'm chalking that up to all the hard trainer work I put in early on the season.  And my run has come along very nicely which I think is from all the form work and continued endurance base.  I'm really looking forward to Muncie and Louisville this year.  Given that I plan to take at least a couple years off before doing another Ironman I hope to make this a great one!

Training Change - Need advice!!!!

Ironman Louisville 2013 prep is coming along nicely.  I've spent the last 2 weeks stepping back and truly focusing on "base" training in my aerobic zone.  This has been a major adjustment for me.  After being told countless times by Jay that my base training should be long and slow I finally decided to listen.  Seems as though most of my running was on the grey zone.  Even though I was seeing improvement I wasn't working my aerobic engine and teaching my body to burn fat as fuel.

Given that I had a good season last year and was seeing improvement this year I feel a little silly changing anything at this point, but I believe it's best for me long term.  They say for burnout, over training and recovery this is how you should do it.  And given my history of injury and Asthma it made sense to me.

The biggest challenge with this new focus is that my training pace is VERY slow compared to what I had been running.  It's embarrassing for one, but scares me that ill also race slower because of it.  Last thing I want to do is change something that makes me slower.  The goal is to get faster at the lower heart rate, I'm just not sure how long that should take.

If anyone has any good experience with this please let me know!!!!  TriFest is this weekend and I'm racing the Olympic distance.  Hoping to see some improvement from last year.  Should be fun!  I'll post an update after that race.

Half Marathon PR

This has been a PR kind of season so far. I finished the KDF Half Marathon in 1:35 and totally blew away my expectations. I hadn't really even been training for the distance so I wasn't sure how it would go and it went great. As you may know I've never considered myself a runner and not to long ago I hated running. It wasn't until recently when I lost the weight and got my Asthma under control that I was really able to work at it.

My brother and I got great starting spots near the front of the race. With 12,000 plus racing that's a good thing. I didn't have to spend a lot of energy dodging slower or walking participants. With the starting position and the perfect weather I was geared up to go hard.

When the race started I told myself to hold back and stay within myself to save something for the last half of the race. I thought I was in trouble when I looked down and saw that I had averaged 7:05 through the first 2 miles. But I felt great so I just kept on truckin.

About mile 8 you go through Churchill Downs and as cool as that was the little climbs coming out of the tunnels really spiked my heart rate. I think those 2 little hills hurt me for later in the race. I pushed it hard through this section and paid for it in the last 2 miles. But I embraced the suck and pushed through to a time I was super happy with.

Really hoping all these early season race results mean I'm on track for an awesome Ironman Louisville in August!

Season Progression

I've been away from this blog for quite some time now.  Thought I'd stop in and leave a quick update.  I've been blessed with the opportunity to work with SoundAsthma.com this year and wear some gear they have made for me to help spread the word on Asthma Awareness.  I'm also trying to get the word out about their awesome smartphone application called Asthma Sense.  You really should check it out!  They have allowed me to post a few blogs on their site about Asthma and my struggles with it, so please check those out also. :)

So far this year I've run the 3 Louisville Triple Crown races.  PR'd in the 5k and the 10 miler, I believe I would have PR'd in the 10K also but had a nature break that I couldn't ignore.  This weekend I raced in the Tri at the Y in New Albany Indiana.  It was the first Triathlon of the year for me and I had a great race.  Finished 1st in my age group and 7th overall.  Even though it's a small local Super Sprint, I'm still super happy with those results.

This race was extra cool for me for multiple reasons.  One I got to wear my new Tri Top from SoundAsthma and it's pretty cool.  Two, I got to race with my brother for the first time in 2 years and my best friend raced his 1st Tri ever!!!

All in all the season is going great.  I'm truly blessed and can't wait to see how this season unfolds!

2013 News!!!!!

Got some awesome news today!  Soundasthma.com will be sponsoring me for the entire 2013 season.  I'm really looking forward to working with them and helping raise asthma awareness.  As an athlete with asthma and a father of a 2 year old with pre asthma symptoms this is huge for me.   Learning more about the details.  More to come!!!

A war vet, Ironman in Training and my brother

I have 2 brothers (they are twins), both of whom I love greatly but today I wanted to tell you all about Kyle.  Since this blog is focused on triathlons, Ironman training and never giving up I thought it only made sense to write about Kyle.

Kyle is 5 years younger than me so as you can imagine there was a gap there growing up.  We always had a lot in common as kids and I enjoyed him hanging around.  As I became older and got a car and all that good stuff I pretty much stopped spending much time with my brothers and I regret that to this day.  Because of that I think as Kyle grew up we never really spent much time together either.  Even though we loved each other we had our own friends and things to do.  We both loved sports and enjoyed playing basketball in the CYO leagues.  I even got to coach his high school team, which was an awesome experience.

After high school and some college Kyle decided the Army was something that would work for him.  I deeply respected his decision to join especially given the post 9/11 times we lived in.  Kyle excelled in the military, really anything he puts his heart in he excels in.  I thought for sure he was going to be a career guy.  But luckily for his family he decided to get out and come home after about 5+ years in.  During that time he spent 18 months in Iraq.  We don't talk about that time much, mainly I think because I'm almost afraid to ask.  I've heard and seen enough video and pics to know that it wasnt a pleasant experience. 

During his time in the military Kyle missed a lot of family time.  I think that's probably the worst part of it for him.  I felt like Iraq really changed him for a while.  When he was home he seemed on edge.  I can only imagine how war can really impact a man.  I really don't see that in him much anymore.  He is a big ol softy around my daughter to, I love that!  I'm not sure if he really understands how proud of him I am, but I hope he does.  We texted a LOT during his time in Washington.  We kept each other motivated on our running programs and I really enjoyed that.  I really think we kind of had a rebonding time around that.  I really couldn't wait until he came home and we could do that stuff together.

He is home now and has been for a couple years.  Our work schedules don't allow us to get to train much together but when we do I love it.  We've also done some running races together and one Sprint triathlon.  Sharing something you are so passionate about with your brother is a pretty awesome thing.  Being the big brother I think I get just as much enjoyment in seeing him meet a goal than I do meeting my own.  It meant so much to me that he figured out how to get a day off for my Ironman last year.  I could always see and hear him in the crowd before anyone else.  When your little brother who you are so extremely proud of is out there showing his pride in you it's something that chokes me up even writing this.

Kyle is geared up for his first Ironman at Ironman Louisville this year.  We will be out there racing together hopefully and I hope I get a chance to see him on the course at some point.  He is a freakishly fast swimmer so there is a chance I won't see him after we jump off the dock.  I'm so excited for him knowing what that finish line feels like and living through the journey of your first Ironman is an experience in itself.  He is going to do great, I know he will, it's going to be an awesome year.

Please give him a shout out and keep him in your thoughts as he prepares for this day.  He's a true hero for his service and he'll be an Ironman this year!

Never Give Up especially on something you can't go a day without thinking about!!  Dream Big!

Pain

Looks like my hip pain isn't just going to go away.  This problem showed up last year and I ended up getting cortisone shots which I don't believe helped.  But some time off and strength training seemed to be the answer.  I had to end my 7 miler last night at 6.25 simply because I couldn't stand the pain any longer.

The pain is in my right hip on the back side of the leg at the top rear side of the bone.  It really only hurts when I run and the day or so after.  I have really tight hamstrings and I'm trying very hard to focus on stretching more.  Part of me believes it a form issue, but I'm not convinced that's what it is.  It could also me from mild probation, tight muscles, an injury, back issues or hip rotation issues.  Either way it's painful and I need to get it fixed.

My plan of attack is time off from running with a focus on the bike, stretching and strength/PT type work.  I'm going to give it 2 weeks and then start some easy runs and see how it feels.  Luckily I'm still a ways off from any primary races but this could impact some trail races I had planned.

I've neglected my bike really since a month after Ironman Louisville so the extra bike work is welcomed, but I don't want to lose any running fitness but a couple weeks won't hurt.

Enough complaining for today since my lunch is about finished.  Looking forward to the weekend and I hope you all have a great one!

If anyone has any tips or ideas about the hip thing please comment or email me!

Remember to never give up because anything you work hard enough for is possible!  Just check out rundustin.com for a prime example.