15 days to IMAZ... Bring it!

As I sit here on a flight from Portland to Dallas, what else you do than to start writing blogs or blog topics for future posts. Gotta love the "down" time and airplane wifi. Anyways, we got 15 days to IMAZ, our last race of this 2014. It has been a great year for the two of us, despite the setbacks of my crash earlier in the year, it is amazing how by approaching this season in a total differnt way really helped us get through the daunting task of 2 full long distance tris (read iron-distance since it is an Ironman and Challenge).

This is what you do on a date night

Originally when we set up for this quest of craziness, which was race at Challenge Atlantic City (140.6 No. 1) and Ironman Arizona (140.6 No. 2) we had to sit down and discuss our goals. We had our coach of course bless our decision, however it was ours and we had to own it. For starters, one thing that might be noticed from our blog is that we definitely cut back on racing. 

We had an amazing 2013, it was our second year of Tri-ing and after going a little crazy with 13 races during the year we decided to cut back. Granted last year our A race was a lot earlier in the year so pretty much after Ironman Texas we just didn't want to stop training or racing and simply lose all the gains of the training and endurance we had achieved. We finished the year and we were tired, a couple of injuries were bothering us and we needed to thank our bodies for doing what they had done. 

So for 2014 we only signed up for 4 races and you probably have seen the posts about them. Now that we are reaching the 4th and last one it is just interesting to see how our life has totally transformed. When we set off earlier in the year for Challenge Atlantic City, we knew we were in for a really long year, so we had to be smart during training. One thing we learned last year was that we needed to listen to our bodies. Our bodies had done a lot, but we didn't listen as well and paid the price. To some extend at one point we were just racing to race, without a set goal or simply because others were doing it. This year we were smarter in the sense that we decided that no short races were going to be done. We did a couple of 5Ks but were for fun or for good causes (DFW Lab Rescue 5k) Also it is not news that racing is expensive, and while I didn't really tallied up the total of how much we spent (kinda afraid) in 2013 it is safe to say that it was a lot. So wanted for it to be differnt for 2014, we set up a budget after knowing we were doing 2 out of state races, so it was important we stuck to it. I think not only our bodies are thanking us but our checking account is too. I know racing is exciting, and you see progress and your body is giving you results but don't forget the big picture. Why do yo do this?

For us, at least, this year worked out great. Having a late race, meant we couldn't really slack off at all during the year. We had only a few weeks fully off after Challenge and while it took me a while to get back to it, my body was responding pretty good and Res was also seeing awesome results. While still not extremely fast, it is amazing to see how we can now do a 4-5 hr bike ride and go run errands all day and don't even think about the long ride. Or run 13-15 miles and not even feel sore afterwards. Our coach has been amazing too helping us keep this endurance and also get better. If you would ask me, I think we are better prepared for Ironman Arizona that we've been in any of our previous 70.3s or other 2 140.6s. It just feels like all the parts are falling in the right place. We probably started our tapper a little earlier than what our TrainingPeaks has on schedule, but we feel rested, not stressed, healthy, and more than anything happy. We are happy that our 2014 journey has been amazing and can't wait to close the year with an amazing race at IMAZ. 

For now, we will enjoy our taper, continue to be healthy, dial in the last minute details of our race and setup our trip in 14 days to Tempe to take it all in. You might hear from us before race day... It is a long road trip from Fort Worth to Tempe, so we might have some extra time in our hands. So stay tuned.