Kicking off

My race is officially 3 months away and although I have put in ~6 months of work into training prior to this, I wanted to begin tracking my training and experiences in this final stretch leading up and through the IRONMAN 70.3.  Not only for me to look back on later but also for friends, family or others who may want to know what's involved. 

Since I have not been tracking up until this point, I will summarize the last 6 months in brief...

• First and foremost, although I don't discount the power of self-motivation, I don't think anyone who begins something like this will go at it alone...you will encounter all levels of support from friends, family, co-workers and even strangers.  That's been my experience anyway and I've been very fortunate to experience that so far, probably one of the biggest things I will take away from all of this. 
• Early in my training, I heard that a local triathlete passed away in the middle of an Olympic-level triathlon...was married, had kids, in shape, etc.  It was definitely something that has stayed with me during my training and will during the race...be competitive, push yourself but know and understand your body and its signals.  
• Swim: If you were to ask me if I liked to swim about 5 months ago, I would have answered with at least one curse word in a sentence ending with "no." About 3 months ago, I would have said that we have a love/hate relationship and now, I will admit that I actually enjoy it.  I started off barely being able to swim 25 yds to open water swim and now swimming 1 mile.  I would say this is one my proudest accomplishments so far.  I absolutely hated swimming and am still not good but it was a great moment when I was able to say to myself, I can do this part now.
• Bike: What can I say, I love it.  Still getting used to riding in a larger group and pacing myself in a race setting but overall, I really enjoy it.  Like swimming, there's no ear phones, music or other technology to distract me so it's my brief time away from all of that, which is probably good.  Very relaxing and gives me a lot of time to think...mostly about the to do's I haven't been able to get done!
• Run: So far, training has been somewhat minimal.  I've always been a runner so not worried about this area and if I make the cutoff time for swim and bike during 70.3, I should be in the clear for this part (knock on wood!).  I did sign up for the Aramco Houston half marathon (Jan 18th) so more details to come on that later.  May do another half marathon end of February too...we'll see.
• There's been many 4am alarm clock rings (and plenty more to come) and I get ready in the gym more than I do in my own home.  I've learned that you will fall at least once clipped into a bike and I checked that off my list pretty quickly!
• End of September, I participated in a sprint triathlon in Galveston Bay to provide me a bit of a glimpse of what's to come end of March, I was very glad I did this...open swimming in bay is completely different than swimming in a lap pool!

Looking forward to providing more updates through the race!