Family, Turkey, and Jamaica

Once again our training week was not fully completed. We had a few obstacles, Catherine's family came out to visit spur of the moment. We were able to get a few workouts in but most of the time we spent visiting with the family and enjoying the time we had together. Once the family left we picked up our training where we left off. The few days that we stayed on schedule certainly tired us out...we slept for a good 10 hours after our workout days completely exhausted from the training but it was good to get back on schedule.

We had another set back...Thanksgiving!! Lots and lots of food was eaten and a lack of training! We did manage to get a run and bike in on Thanksgiving day. We went to Manito Park for the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. It was freezing cold outside, only 19 degrees outside when we were running, Craig really wanted to be back in Santa Barbara in the warm weather instead of in this arctic climate! It was a great run though, lots and lots of people, at least 500.

We also were able to get a little bit of biking in. As you can see in the pictures we set up our new indoor trainers. We have one unfinished room in the basement and decided that'd be the perfect spot to do our biking, it's nice and cool down there and no worries of messing up the carpet or anything else. After setting up the trainers (thank you Craig!) we brought our TV, VCR, and DVD player downstairs from our bedroom and set up a little movie area so we can watch movies while we're doing our long training rides. It really worked out great, we tested it out for about a half hour before we had to leave for Thanksgiving dinner. I think it's going to make the time go by nicely while biking indoor for the winter months!

We're going to finish our movie while biking today and then it's off to Jamaica! We'll be going to Sandals Grande Ocho Rios for a little over a week. We plan to do a lot of golfing, scuba diving, and of course Ironman Training so once we get back we'll update on how the trip and training went!

Tough Week

Sorry it's been awhile since we've updated...we're going to try and update weekly (every Sunday or Monday) to let everyone know how our training is going. We had a bit of a setback this past week. I started to get sick then Craig and for a few days we had to cut back on the training and try to get better so we ended up having a pretty rough week. We're finally starting to feel better so we should get back on schedule soon, we're going to start slow though since we have been taking a few days off.
Our first week of training (before the cold) was pretty tough. We spent A LOT of time in the pool and on the bike, we've been taking some time off from running, slowly getting back into it, since we just finished the marathon and wanted to make sure we gave our legs a rest from the impact of running but we should start back up soon with some longer runs. The swimming has been very tiring, we went to a masters swim class on base that they offer twice a week in the evening and we were able to get quite a few techniques and it was good to swim with other people (there's even another triathlon couple--they're very good though, hahaha!).
Not a whole lot to write about this time but we'll update more after this week once we get back into our training plan. Thanks for everyone who wrote a comment, we enjoy hearing from everyone!

The Beginning of our Training

So we finally made the commitment to race in the Ironman Coeur d'Alene June 22, 2008. Although our weekend began with a lot of laziness and relaxing we are motivated and ready to begin our training. We haven't decided on an exact training plan yet but we will start training tomorrow now that we've had a week off since the Marine Corps Marathon.

Today Craig and I went out to Fitness Fanatics and bought all the equipment for the Ironman, what an expensive day! Since the weather is getting cold quickly, winter is coming, we decided to buy indoor bike trainers for both of us so that we can do a lot of training indoors as opposed to the nasty weather outside. We each tried on triathlon wetsuits , what a workout that was to try and pull those suits on and off! We're pretty happy with the suits we got, I think they're going to be great...especially in the cold Coeur d'Alene water in June! Also, as a little treat...Craig got an early birthday present for me, new triathlon bike shoes and pedals that are so much lighter and better than the old "mountain bike" like shoes/pedals I had before.

We plan on keeping everyone updated on our training and how we're doing throughout the next thirty weeks leading up to the race...we hope you enjoy!