The week that was (and could have been better!)

Despite only being in the early stages of the Christmas season, I'm quickly finding out how tough it is going to be to stick to my workouts for the next couple of weeks. My gym closed down for a week for some kind of renovation, so I haven't been able to swim since last Tuesday. I did some modification to the off-season program, and managed to at least get a workout of some kind in on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Running outside has been a challenge lately, since people in my area seem unable to shovel the sidewalks in front of their houses. The slipping and sliding make it difficult to keep a steady heart rate... I'm constantly worried about going down in a heap and pulling a groin, or something. Plus, you know... people would laugh, and that would suck. Missed a workout this week... I made Thursday my scheduled day off instead of the normal Monday since it was my staff Christmas party... and today just happened to be a kick-ass blizzard, which kind of threw my outside running plans in the crapper... and no gym to fall back on with the ongoing renovations. So it looks like today just became my day off for the week, with a re-scheduled run tomorrow. Truthfully, I don't know how much energy I would have had for today's run... last night there was a gathering at my future in-laws' place. I don't even want to think about how many empty calories were ingested through various solids and liquids. Oh, we all took plenty of liquids. This was, of course, a "pre-Christmas" party, with the actual Christmas party happening next Saturday. The parties at their place are always a really fun time, but with me and my zero grams of willpower, they aren't exactly helping the whole triathlon cause. Have to make a solid effort this week to stay on track and be redeemed. Time to suck it up, princess.

Watching Kona

NBC finally aired the Hawaii Ironman on Saturday. I love watching it every year... between the coverage of the professionals' results and profiles of age groupers, it makes for some good watching. I mean, it combines two of my much loved pastimes: watching TV and triathlon! With the race being in October I already knew all the results before it was shown on television, but it didn't matter. It was still very exciting and very emotional. I am very moved -- as I was last year and in '05 -- from the story of John "Blazeman" Blais, a man with ALS who completed the event in 2005. As he predicted in '05, he was forced to watch the race from a wheelchair in 2006 as the disease slowly but surely took over his body. The world lost John Blais in May of this year at the age of 35, but his story lives on. Kudos to NBC for mentioning him and showing some clips in this year's broadcast (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, and believing that they aired it to promote awareness, NOT to help win an Emmy). Google "John Blais ALS" for a lot more information.