Getting My Groove Back

 It has been nearly 17 months since my last race and my last blog post and it amazes me how much has changed in that time. In my wrap up post for 2019 I shared my intentions to take the 2020 season off of racing to spend more time with my family and at my cabin. Little did I know at the time that 2020 was going to bring a global pandemic and a lost season for nearly all triathletes and runners. 

After my season was over, I stopped working out completely for quite awhile and put on quite a bit of weight as a result. I was both physically and mentally exhausted from a long 2019 season and needed the time away. It was never my intent to avoid training and exercise completely so in February 2020, I started training with Abigail, my 8 year old daughter, to run her 1st 5k at the Drake Relays Road Races. We were several weeks into training when the pandemic became real and the race was postponed. Abigail and I did end up running our 5k virtually in the fall.

With the pandemic came working from home and being stuck in our own little bubble for several months. As you can tell from how I train, I am big into planning ahead and knowing what to expect. The pandemic took that feeling of comfort away from me and instead of turning to exercise for stress relief, I turned to food and gained more weight. I'm not going to sit here and act like all of 2020 was a complete loss and that my life was miserable because that would be a lie. Plenty of great things happened over the last year as I was able to spend plenty of time with my family and at my cabin, I continued to build on my career at John Deere, I had a very successful deer hunting season, and I found my way back into coaching high school basketball (for just a few examples). 

As the holidays came and the year turned to 2021 I knew that it was time to get back after it. My motivation was lacking but I wanted to start somewhere. I started setting an early alarm on weekdays to either go for a walk or ride the bike in my basement. Nothing too intense but at least I was moving a bit more. As basketball season was coming to an end, I put together a training plan and started to formulate a racing schedule for the year. The excitement was starting to build. My current weekly training schedule includes 3 runs, 3 bike rides, 3 walks, and 4 strength training sessions. 

2021 Tentative Schedule

• 5/1 - Live Healthy Iowa 5k
• 6/27 - Ames Triathlon - Sprint Duathlon
• 7/11 - Summer Iowa Games Triathlon
• 8/15 - Bluff Creek Triathlon - Sprint
• 9/? - Cyman Triathlon
• 10/17 - IMT Des Moines Marathon - Half Marathon

The schedule is purposely light as I need to ease my way back into racing. I'm starting off very out of shape and overweight so it will take awhile to build up my fitness again. Additionally, I have so far been uncomfortable with returning to the YMCA to swim (hopefully soon!) and haven't swam since August 2019, which is why my 1st 2 scheduled races don't include swims. 

My goals for the year are simple, I want to complete my racing schedule and return to an acceptable race weight. From the outside, I'm sure those don't seem too exciting but I have some REALLY exciting things in mind for 2022 and 2023 so it is very important to get my base fitness back. 

So far, things are progressing well. I am on my 3rd week of a 9 week training schedule leading up to my 1st race. While my pace is slow, I have worked my way up to running for 25 continuous minutes and am averaging nearly 19mph on the bike. I have also lost 7 lbs. More importantly, I have been feeling much better physically these past few weeks and have started to feel the power burn inside me again. 

It may not have turned out the way that I envisioned, but a year off is exactly what I needed. 

Some people want it to happen,

some wish it would happen,

others make it happen.

- Michael Jordan