What I've Been Up To

...I know, all this talk about getting the blog back up and running and I disappear for over two weeks. Hey, at least it's not two MONTHS this time.

Anyway...off-season. Yeah. I pretty much trained through last "off-season" because of the Cowtown Half Marathon in February, so this is the first time in two years that I'm not having Coach Karen tell me what to do. I was a bit lost not having that reassuring e-mail from TrainingPeaks waiting for me in my inbox every morning with my workouts for the day.

I've gotten to do some stuff that I haven't done in a long time thanks to how all-consuming Ironman training is. I went for my first hike since last Christmas on Sunday. I thought I was still in pretty good shape, but scrambling over rocks going straight up in the ice and snow is a whole different beast.

Top of Pitchoff Mountain

Then this week it was time to return to Karate, also about a year since my last class. I actually put on a white belt at first because I felt so rusty, but Sensei made me put my black belt on. It was really bad - I have NO flexibility, my accuracy in kicking is WAY off, and I can no longer smack things with my forearms like I used to.

Me putting yes, a teenager in an armlock. Hey, Selena is about my size and stronger than she looks!

It's funny - I think of one of the benefits of triathlon as being that you stay a very well-rounded athlete, but compared to pre-triathlon "Do Karate, Running, Hiking, Paddling, Snowshoeing, Skiing, etc. etc." me, I've actually become very focused as an athlete, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails.

Luckily I'm not racing anything longer than HIMs next year, so although I fully intend to hit the SBR HARD HARD HARD and get some PRs, I should also have enough time to at least occasionally attend Karate class or pick up a paddle.