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As most of you know Ironman Florida is less than 48 days away. I started training for this on January 1st of this year. I have put in countless hours and miles of training, raised over $9000 for a charity very close to my heart and ate more food than one person ever should. The past nine months have been very insightful for me as I have had plenty of opportunities to reflect on myself, working on who and what I am. For any of those of you who swim, bike or run for any amount of distance I'm sure you can relate. I feel ready. I have a really tough few weeks of training ahead of me and then a couple of weeks of "rest", then the big show. I haven't been the model husband and father through all of this. It takes up most of my time. My two boys have both seemed to manage ok and we haven't really seen any negative side effects to the whole, "Dad is still out riding his bike.", standard answer that they have received when they ask where I'm at on most weekends this year. Quinn seems to think its gonna be fun to head up to the Ironman event and I think he is sharp enough to grab the concept that its going to be a larger than life event and very big deal for his old man. Not to mention he is going to have plenty of family and friends there. All his favorite people in one place, he will love it. Cody on the other hand doesn't care, doesn't know or understand any of it.
For example:
Cody: Dad your leaving?
Me: yes
Cody: Swimming?
Me: Not today, just riding the bike.
Cody: Running?
Me: Not today, just riding the bike.
Cody: and swimming?
Me: Just the bike.
Cody: Ok. Bye.
Me: Love you, Codes.
Cody: Love you too Dad. Now go Dad! Dad your bike! Dad Go! GO!
He has no idea where or why, I'm riding and he doesn't care. To him it means he gets his mother almost all to himself. Which is what he wants most of the time. Oh, and he wants to close the door behind me because he is OCD about open doors.
He is very demanding day to day. Knikie has done a phenomenal job so far.
That's the purpose of this blog. A big thank you to a little woman. My little woman. She has been nothing short of perfect the past 8 months. We of course have had our normal ups and downs as any couple does, but she has really gone above and beyond by taking on more than she should have too. I rarely help with anything around the house and our family's schedule has pretty much revolved around my training schedule. She does all of our laundry, cooks, cleans and puts up with Codes round the clock. Her Mom has been a great help giving her the occasional break from all the action, but her few hours of reprieve are up quickly and shes back at it again. She thought that she wouldn't ever have to do this again since I got out of the Navy in May of 2001. She had to raise Quinn by herself for the last half of his first year and we both almost didn't make it through that. I was really worried about her when we first discussed Ironman last year. I told her it wouldn't be like 2009 (I ran 21 tri's and 10 running races), it would be worse, much worse, in the way of training time and me being away from the family. I got a response from her at the time that surprised me, "Honey, if you want to do this, then do it. The only thing I ask is that you do it right. We can do this and I can handle the house and kids.", she said. By saying "do it right", she meant making sure that I get some help and training advice, thus the reason we hired a coach. She has been nothing but motivational. She comes down on me when it looks like I'm slacking on my workouts. Makes sure I get out the door with plenty of time when I have a workout to get in. She hasn't griped once about the hours that I'm gone. She has even driven out to pick me up a couple of times now when things haven't gone quite to plan. Through all of this, I have not been there for her, but she has been there for me. So Thank You, Knikie for being there for me and helping to try and make one of my life dreams come true!
For all of you that want to know, Knikie has made it clear that next year triathlon is not a priority. Apparently I will need to brush up on my interior decorating skills. Next year is the year of home improvement, painting walls, hanging pictures and more than likely taking on more of the day to day duties again. Don't tell anyone, but I'm kinda looking forward to it.
My wife rocks!
Back to work...
