The past few months I’ve been in a rut with my training.  My running wasn’t improving much from the off-season (actually the past couple of years it has seemed to get slower rather than faster), I could hardly drag myself to the pool, and I had trouble forcing myself to get in rides longer than an hour on the trainer.  I took a good chunk of time off after the Chicago Marathon and did very light training over the holidays so I didn’t feel that taking a break from swim/bike/run was the solution.  After giving it a lot of thought, I decided it was time for a change and am working with a different coach this season.  I have only been working with him for a few weeks (and I was traveling for work one of them, which limited my workouts to running or weights), so it’s too early to see if there have been any improvements/changes, but I am feeling a bit more excited and motivated about my workouts because they’re something new and different.  I guess I will find out during my next race, the Bridge the Gap Half-Marathon on May 22nd!

Race-related updates, I ran the Go! Half Marathon on April 10th in 1:52:29, not close to my PR (and I wasn’t expecting to PR due to my low mileage/slower runs so far this season), but it was a little better than expected.  I am hoping to go sub 1:50 in Quincy   – it is a flatter course so that should help!

JMR was having a fun hair day.  I’m blaming it on the wind since he ran so fast!

Time is flying and before I know it I’ll be in full swing with racing and large volume training.  After the Quincy Half, I am heading to Columbia, MO during Memorial Day weekend for a triathlon training camp that my coach is co-leading.  Three days of biking, running and a little bit of swimming, I definitely will be tired by that Monday evening!  Then two weeks after the training camp weekend I’ll be heading to Effingham, IL to race the Cutting Edge Classic 70.3 where I have some unfinished business to attend to after the horrible race I had there last year (I am bringing Eduralytes this time!).

Non-training related updates, I traveled to Madison, WI for a work certification in March and for a conference last week.  The training and conference building was right next to the path I ran along when I went up for the WIBA training weekend last July.  Memories.

The path on ran on is actually past the farmhouse, but you get the idea 🙂

One night for dinner we went downtown and ate at a restaurant right off of Lake Monona.  I’m not going to lie, I did get chills driving by Monona Terrace and seeing parts of the race course.  I am more than excited to hopefully come back in 2017.

There will be no panic attacks the next time I swim in you!

That’s about it!  I plan to get back into my weekly training updates now that I’m getting back into a routine and (hopefully) being more consistent with my training 🙂