My first Professional ITU Race

It's been awhile since my last post and things have been pretty busy lately. I leave this week on Thursday for San Francisco. I can't believe that's it's almost here and in five days I will lining up on the start line next to the best in the World along with Olympians that were in Beijing only two months ago. I think I'm going into this race though with a good attitude though that no matter what the outcome and what place I finish it will be an amazing learning experience for other races like this to come. I know I'm not where I want to be with my training from some health issues over the past month with being in the hospital for my stomach to being sick and run down for almost two weeks. My training had to be cut back in order to recover from these things but going into this race I know no matter what I can swim with these guys so I know I will come out of the water with the leaders. On the bike it will be my first race where it's a draft legal race so I know there will be lots of things to learn about how these guys race races like these. I know coming out of the water with the leaders I will be in the lead pack on the bike and it will be just not to do anything stupid and I should be able to stay with them. After that once I get to the run the top guys will be running between 30-32 minutes for the 10km and I'm just not there yet. There will be so many things to learn though from this race that I know I will be able to find all the positive aspects and build on those for my next one.
Work has just been work lately, nothing new and exciting. Last weekend Lea and I went for out weekend course of marriage prep. I went into it with a pretty negative attitude and that the whole thing was going to be really boring but I was very wrong. I learned quite a bit of stuff from the couple that was giving the course and many things that Lea and I can use in the future. The wedding is only about 6 months away now and we are starting to put invites together to get ready to send out. We're working on a few other things also in order to get ready and we are getting pretty excited. Last weekend on Saturday night I got went to a big structure fire at a family home where the family just barely made it out. It was a big fire and the house sustained a lot of damage. It was my first house fire since Lea and I moved into our house and it really hit me how scary it must be for the people who's house it was and how I have no idea what I would do if that ever happened to us.
Things have been going good though at our place and we've been getting lots of work done. We finished the base boards in the basement around the floor we put in and we installed a door to separate the rec room from my work shop and laundry room. This weekend my aunt and uncle from North Bay came to visit. They got here Saturday afternoon and after doing some shopping into with them we went to the pool because my sister was swimming in a swim meet. After that we had a really nice relaxing evening back at home and my sister came over and we all played some cards. It was good to have Mark and Bonnie here for the weekend because we never get to see them enough and it was a chance for them to see our new house for the first time.
So I guess I'll post after I get back from San Francisco with some pictures. I leave Thursday morning and I'm pretty much ready to go. I've got the race wheels on the new bike, my new wetsuit from Xterra because I'm sure that ocean is going to be chilly and now I just got to show up and race my best.