Racing Withdrawl

So the other day I looked at my calender and counted how many weeks it was until my next race.  SIX!  6 whole weeks (actually, only about 5.5 now...).  I got sad.  After my recent racing binge, the idea of having to wait 6 weeks until I could be on a starting line again felt so far away.  And then I sort of started to feel like a racing junkie.  Like I need some sort of weaning protocol.  Race-aholics Anonymous or something!  (As an aside, do you know that it's a relatively common practice to feed alcoholics beer, even via feeding tube if the patient is unable to eat, in the hospital setting?  Withdrawl is a serious problem!)

Of course I came to my senses eventually.  I do acknowledge that you need to train in order to race well.  And I do like to train!  (perhaps not quite as much as racing, but that's okay :).  So train I will.  Dirk gave me one last "vacation" week this week (which of course does still involve training, but all easy training) because come Monday 8/27, I'll have exactly 12 weeks until Ironman Arizona.  Bring on the miles baby!  Ironman Round #2 here we come!

So it's pretty darn good timing that I found this waiting on the doorstep when I got back from my swim this morning:



Ordered on Monday, arrived on Thursday - now THAT'S good service! 

Something tells me, these will get some really good use over the next 12 weeks!  I ripped into the box when I got it inside, but then told myself I couldn't put them together and try them out until I did my bike ride this afternoon.  Now that's some serious motivation!  Time to go ride!!

PS  In case you are looking for a great article about nutrition, pro triathlete Jesse Thomas wrote an excellect one for Triathlete Magazine.  Jesse pretty much sums up my entire philosphy on nutrition in few short paragraphs.  And he says it much better than I ever could because he's really funny.  :)  Balance and consistency are so key folks.  Trust me, at this point, I've seen it all and I've done it all myself.  Aim for that B+ because aiming for the A+ all the time almost always ends in disaster!