Welcome to my blog! After qualifying for Ironman Kona and sending an email detailing my thoughts to family and friends, I got some feedback that I should create a blog to chronicle my preparation for next year's event. Perhaps this encouragement was a way out for my friends & family to avoid receiving a long email from me, but at any rate, the blog is born. Here is where I will capture my thoughts, fears, excitement, and detail my preparation for the Ironman World Championship.
For those that I haven't been in contact with, I qualified for the Ironman World Championships, to be held October 13, 2012, by finishing 2nd in my age group (20th overall) at Ironman Wisconsin on 9/11/11. I will post my unofficial race report/email that I sent to family and friends later.
Since that race, I took 4 days completely off: sleeping in until 6 each morning and getting a normal start to the day. Then came preparation for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon which was 3 weeks after Ironman Wisconsin. I actually really enjoyed that preparation because I focused on short quick runs mostly going 2-6 miles as fast as I could trying to retrain my legs to have quicker turnover after a disappointing 8min per mile plod in Madison during the Ironman.
I'll give a race report on that a little later...I want to get this first post out without making it too long.
Right now I have been focusing on getting more sponsors to partner with. For the past 3 years I have had the great fortune of working with Get A Grip Cycles in Chicago, who just yesterday was honored as "Best Bike Shop in Chicago" by Chicago Magazine, a well-deserved honor. Get A Grip has provided me with the perfect bike fit and efficient tune-ups along the way. With their help, I trimmed over 30 minutes off my bike split from the Ironman Wisconsin 2008 race to this year's race on the same course! Thanks Get A Grip for all your help. I really look forward to continuing to work with you guys in the future.
Getting sponsorship is kinda like asking your crush out in 7th grade. It's someone you've admired for a long time and you don't know if they see the same benefit of associating with you. There are a lot of swimming, biking, running, and nutrition products I use. Hopefully some of these companies won't leave me standing in the corner by myself when the music plays this year.
