Wednesday, September 17, 2014

One last kick at the can

I know I've tried a few times to keep this up to date for friends and family but I certainly haven't done a good job at that.  I will give this one more attempt as I feel I have a bit more inspiration lately for training, racing and life in general. 

I guess I will back track a little bit and bring everyone up to speed on how I got to where I am today.  After starting to race again a little bit last summer I let everything go once again and put on even more weight.  At one point I was 220lbs!  Throughout the second part of the winter though I decided I wanted to race again a little bit this summer so I started doing some light training.  I entered a few local races during the later part of the winter and into the spring just trying to get back into things.
My first tri was North Bay.  I love this race for some reason but I was pretty nervous because I still hadn't lost much weight and wasn't in the best of shape.  It turned out to also be one of the hottest days of the summer being one of probably one 2 or 3 days that got over 30C.  It was a very tough race because of this and I really suffered in the heat but I was very happy being able to win the overall race.
Next up was Belwood where I only did the swim/bike.  Wasn't a great race, got there late so it was a rush to set up and no warm up.  Five minutes to start was announced and I was still trying to get my wetsuit on!  Still won overall in the swim/bike but wasn't what I was looking for.
I then did the Beaton Classic right here in Sudbury.  The event has been running since the early 80's and is unique because you still swim, bike, run but they also add in a canoe between the bike and run.  I've done the race many times but also as part of a relay never solo.  This year I decided though I was going to do it all.  Again I got lucky and it was probably the second day all summer that was over 30C.  I was really happy to be able to win this race even though my run really struggled because of the heat.  After I finished I was pretty dizzy and sick.  Took also 20minutes before I was able to stand on my own with no support.

A week later I raced the tri in St Josheph Island.  Had a really good race here despite going completely off course in the swim.  It was the first race where I actually started to run half decent again.  Again happy to get the overall win.
Thought I would go for 3 wins in 3 weekends and heading down to Parrysound for the triathlon there.  Another really good race but one of the top pro guys showed up and my fitness was just not there to stay with him so I had to settle for 2nd that weekend. 
Some alright results and a fairly big life change that I will speak to in a minute put a boost in my confidence to up my training even more and will be racing my first stand alone half marathon next weekend in Barrie and then my first "big boy" race December 6th in Palm Springs California.  It will be the US HITS Triathlon Series National Championships for the half ironman distance.  My first half ironman since 2009!  Things have been going well though in my preparation as I've been able to lose some more weight and start to put in more miles on the bike and run.  I've also started swimming with the master's team this year for the first time.  The last 8 years or so I've been swimming all on my own and never really could force myself to stay in the pool or lake very long so this will be good for me to have someone coaching me and an actual workout to follow.

The biggest news of all and that's way more important than anything else I've written about so far is a few weeks ago I was contact by someone claiming to be my sister.  First look at her picture pretty much sealed the deal but it was still a pretty big shock.  My sister Kelly was adopted at birth and about a year decided to search for her birth parents.  She found her mom first and then found out her dad had passed away and then found me.  Yes we have the same dad.  We've done a DNA test just to confirm everything and it came back positive that we are without a doubt brother and sister.  It's been great as Kelly lives right here in Sudbury with two great kids and her husband that we've been getting to know.  It's been pretty special to me not having any family and now being able to share that connection back to my dad with someone so special.  This whole thing has really renewed my outlook on life and has just been such a positive experience.