It's on

Lot's happened since I last wrote: signed up for Ironman Canada 2008; found a coach that I think is going to take me to a new level; got married on October 5th; and ran a half-marathon yesterday--two days after the wedding, and it was Christine's idea.

For the past couple of years I'd been attempting to qualify to get into Ironman, but with little luck. This year I decided to make sure I'm in by traveling up to Penticton on Ironman weekend and signing up in person for next year. So August 2008 is my official date with destiny. It's been a long time coming.

Christine and I planned our wedding to coincide with the marathon weekend here in Victoria. I was originally entered in the marathon, and had been training to attempt a 3:10, the Boston qualifying standard for my age, but an injury in mid-August slowed me immensely.

As of last week I hadn't had a run longer than 10K in about 6 weeks. Two of three runs ended with forced walking after 3-4K. Things weren't looking good.

Christine gave me a little pep-talk: she said there were no quitters in this marriage. So I changed my registration to the half-marathon and resigned myself to a long walk in the morning. It was a perfect running day: mild, slightly overcast and 4500 people to suffer with. I figured I'd start off at a slow pace run and see how far I'd get.

I have really great training partners: one decided unbeknown to me to run alongside and pace me in. I put the pain in my lower legs aside, told myself that the Ironman run is going to hurt far more and just ran. I didn't care about time. I just thought, think about something else, have some fun, and count my blessings. And I did. 10K rolled by, 15K, then 16K, 17K, 18K really started to hurt.

I thought I'd start walking, and wait for Christine so we could finish together. But that little nagging "no quitters in this marriage" thing came up. So I kept running. And I ran across that finish line. It wasn't fast. I wasn't pretty. But I was there. And I couldn't be happier.

Life is full of little blessings. I'm pretty lucky. This next year is going to be great.

As I get a few things organized behind the scenes for next year's racing, especially what I hope will be a terrificly exciting announcement about my new coaching relationship I'll post here.