I'm a quitter

I'm sort of on fire. On a pretty good training rally in the last six or seven weeks. Truth of it is I have pretty much been a training maniac since December 1st.

After the Halloween half marathon I fell apart and had some serious wimpy workouts combined with really poor eating choices. The result was a 14lb gain from my weight at Ironman in July. Ooops!

I set out December 1st to really hammer workouts and get a good thing going again. I did great, with excellent efforts and lots and lots of biking and swimming...with only minimal running. A week before the half marathon in October I wrenched my calf on an easy six mile run...I now think it was a grade 2 micro tear.

I made matters worse by hammering out a PR time in the half marathon a week after the incident, running with a calf that hurt nearly every step, and was seriously locked up. Afterward it looked like someone had taken a bat to my calf...it was all bruised and swollen. Now almost three months later it is fine again and I think 100%...the half marathon bid was worth it since it got me a NYC marathon quali time.

While posting some great workouts in December, I didn't really change my eating all that much (any) and toward the end of the month I was only down 3lbs. I made a little goal for myself to lose 10lbs through the holidays from 12/21 to 1/21.

I hit this goal about a week ago and have maintained since then.

In the past five years I have had some pretty good New Years Eve resolution quits. I'm a quitter:

in 07' on NYEve I quit nicotine. At the time I was a pack-&-a-half-a-day of Marlboro Lights and about a tin a day of Copenhagen chew. This year on New Years Eve I was 5 years Nicotine Free! Very psyched about that one.....and that one was a total bitch... I don't want to have to re-do that again.

in 09' it was soda pop. At the time I was a three-to-four-a-day 20oz Diet Mountain Dew habit. I would basically drink coffee until around 1030am, fire up a DietDew before lunch...one with lunch, one around 4p and usually one more late night.

This year my New Years Quit was dairy, meat, and going back to gluten free again. Since the Ironman in July I had slowly let breads and pastas and cheese back into my diet...to the point where it was again a problem (big surprise) ... I was consuming massive amounts of cheese and pasta and breads. All the time.

Even at the kids swim team party last weekend I did not partake in any of the free pizza...it was not easy but I felt great about making it through...not easy since I was serving slices!

The carnage of pizza boxes.

I already feel better 19 days back into the diet plan. I told myself if I could lose 10lbs I would let myself shave my legs again and I would post on the blog. The added weight along with the hair on my legs was driving me crazy. So I shaved this week... and here is my post.

So far I have entered one local Olympic Tri and two marathons: Grandma's and NYC. It's funny after running AZ a year ago I thought to myself I need to stay away from the urban marathons. They are hard for me. And since that thought I have run two and scheduled two more. Whats wrong with me?

Cold weather finally arrived here with our first cold snap and sub zero temps tonight...they had the nets up on the pond after school the other day...notice the foreground...no snow! unheard of in MN mid-January. I'll take it...