Alive and Kicking!

Saint Anthony's Triathlon starts in less then 7 hours, and I'm not there. I was supposed to be. A lot happened between December 1, 2007 and April 27, 2008. Also a lot didn't happen between those dates. The things that didn't happen were miles on the bike, and yards in the pool. The miles on foot were an poorly executed attempt at going from a 6:27 marathon walker to a 5:00 marathon runner. What ever possessed me to try something like that in the dead of winter? Because I entered a raffle at the NYC Marathon Expo and won a trip to the Seville Marathon. Unfortunately the Seville Marathon had a 5 hour cut off. Okay so I didn't finish the race. I did 10K and called it a day. I had one heck of a good time in Spain for a week. While New York was getting it's biggest snowfall of the year, I was wandering around Seville with no jacket on.

What I learned in this exercise in futility was that I'm not going to ever be the runner that I once was. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to run 10K without walking a few minutes every mile. At the moment I can live with that. I just didn't feel like spending a lot of money to fly down to Florida to do a triathlon that I was going to be less prepared for then I was last year when I strolled through the race in a very pedestrian 3:27. Last year I was there with Team in Training and I had a blast. This year they didn't need me as a mentor so I would have been there on my own.

I spent this past winter learning a new sport. I'm taking Tae Kwon Do. On Thursday I passed my Yellow Belt test. TDK is challenging for me. Left and right don't come easy for me, and the movements in this sport don't relate to any other sport I've done in the last 25 years. At times it's been frustrating and I feel like a total spazz, but then there are moments where things finally fall into place and I'm right on target. During the sparring portion of the test I did manage to land a few good kicks. Here I'm spot on. My technique still needs a lot of work.

My next belt is orange. I'd love to be able to do it in a month, but we will see how I do with the new forms for that level. KIHOP!!

In the meantime the weather has started warming up, and I'm getting a few miles on the bike. The good news is I'm only a few pounds over goal weight. Those two to four pounds will go soon I'm sure.