13 in 2013

A year in review. What a year!... we started this year with so many dreams and goals... actually was more like one dream and one goal and it was to become an Ironcouple. It was a dream to some extend but more than anything it became a celebration. A celebration of a journey of 6 months of training and hard work. So this year more than anything has been a celebration and continuing our journey to living fit, healthy while doing triathlons in the process.

But wait.... what about the rest of the year... :)?. For starters, we had planned our year when we were in Colombia last Xmas, but clearly weren't thinking straight. We somehow planned a whole bunch of races through the year that actually ended up being a total of 14 races (13 since Dallas Marathon got cancelled Puli's Elusive Marathon | Res' Elusive Marathon). Hence the 13 in 2013 title.

You probably have seen the blog posts and race recaps on some of them, which yeah we accept it, gets kind of boring at times for you the reader. For us, is a way to get our feelings out of our chest. Definitely as we plan 2014 we will try to do a better job at diversifying and also caring more about you the reader. Anything you want to hear about from our "couple" perspective feel free to let us know, sometimes we welcome ideas. With Res' new blog she plans to cover a broader public and she is planning something really exciting with her blog, it's just taking time to consolidate.

So our year came and went... and it was fast. Maybe the fact that we were so busy training, working, traveling, trying to have  a life just made it go by so fast. It just seems like it was yesterday when we were leaving to Colombia at the start of our Ironman training and here we are waiting for our family to arrive and reminiscing about our accomplishments, failures, lessons learned, and everything in general. Just in case you missed them, here is a list of all our races of 2013 (and some of the reports).

1. Cowtown Half Marathon
2. St. Patty's Sprint Tri
3. Galveston 70.3 Res Report  | Puli Report
4. Ironman Texas
5. Disco Olympic Tri
6. River Cities Sprint Tri
7. Belmar Chase 5K
8. DFW Lab Rescue 5K
9. Trifecta Olympic Tri
10. Rahr & Sons 5K
11. Bourbon Chase 2013
12. Friends of the River 6K
13. No Limits Half Marathon

It was definitely a busy year to say the least, we probably could've done without some of the races but thinking back, it wasn't too bad. Maybe a little bit harder after May as we had probably hit the Triathlon Blues and didn't have motivation to do anything training related. It was going out to just go out and enjoy a workout. In retrospect, that was probably the best idea. We had a few races after Ironman and while we said we would "train" for them, we definitely didn't push as hard during training, we were burned out. We didn't hate triathlon or anything like that, we are still in love with it, it was just a mental and physical burn out and needed a break, we would've taken it but we didn't want the registration money to simply go to waste by not showing up. :).

With traveling for work constantly thrown in the mix it was pretty hard to keep each other motivated to go out and hit the trails, or simply go for a swim. We still managed to do the races and actually we both got to PR at our 5Ks every time we were doing them and that was a great feeling, just imagine if we were training a little bit more... :) unstoppable... just kidding.

In general our 2013 was a great year. As an IronCouple we are stronger than ever, 8 years and going and still running side by side (well not so much while running but you get the idea). We definitely got out of our comfort zone, 140.6 miles are enough proof of it, but our Bourbon Chase, tri-ing at different distances, not giving up on training and keeping at it, are a true testament to our love to tris and how we enjoy them. 

The Engineer had to create a chart for it :)

• Swim: 117837 yards or 67 miles or 42 hours (the equivalent to 2356 laps in the pool)
• Bike: 2330 miles or 141 hours (Distance between San Jose, CA to Savannah, GA)
• Run: 705 miles or 134 hours (the equivalent to 27 marathons)


• Brick: 217 miles or 16 hours

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year y'all!!!

Those stats don't count the racing stats but I'm sure you see that it sure looks and sounds like a lot. However, to us it has become part of our lives, it does look impressive but is not like we did it all in one week or anything like that, it was a process and as a process it takes time, dedication, sweat and tears. 

So as we celebrate Christmas and welcome the New Year we continue with our celebration of 2013 and wish you the best on 2014. Our 2014 will definitely be a challenging year in the tri world but for now time to enjoy the family, good food and we will retake it when the NewYear begins.